Adsorption Science & Technology (Jan 2021)

Preparation of Palm Oil Industry’s Biomass-Based Graphene Composite for the Adsorptive Removal of Methylene Blue

  • Yeit Haan Teow,
  • Wan Nur Athirah Wan Mohammad Hamdan,
  • Abdul Wahab Mohammad

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/9130233
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2021

Abstract

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The ability of POME-based graphene shell composite (P-GSC), an adsorbent generated from oil palm wastes abundantly available in Malaysia such as POME and PKS, was examined in removing methylene blue (MB) dye by adsorption. Adsorption experiments, involving a batch column study and a batch equilibrium study, were conducted to investigate the efficiency of synthesized P-GSC from PKS as a base material in the removal of MB dye. The batch column study demonstrated that small-sized synthesized P-GSC from PKS as a base material could remove up to 98.5% for concentration. Therefore, the following batch equilibrium study was carried out on small-sized P-GSC only. Adsorption isotherms and kinetic isotherms were studied, from which the experimental data showed that the adsorption exhibited a good fit with the Freundlich model (R2=0.8923) and followed the pseudo-second order model (R2>0.98). FESEM, XPS, and XRD morphological and elemental analysis indicated the successful graphinization of POME on the P-GSC surface. The concept of deploying POME as the carbonaceous source to produce P-GSC, and then, deploying the resultant P-GSC as the adsorbent for MB dye removal has presented promising practical potential. Such cost-effective and environmentally friendly reuse of waste materials is envisioned to promote a ‘zero-waste industry.’