Preparation of Activated and Non-Activated Carbon from Conocarpus Pruning Waste as Low-Cost Adsorbent for Removal of Heavy Metal Ions from Aqueous Solution
Ahmed H. El-Naggar,
Abdalwahab K. R. Alzhrani,
Mahtab Ahmad,
Adel R. A. Usman,
Dinesh Mohan,
Yong Sik Ok,
Mohammad I. Al-Wabel
Affiliations
Ahmed H. El-Naggar
1-Soil Sciences Department, College of Food & Agricultural Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia 2-Soil Sciences Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, 68 Hadayek Shobra, P.O. Box 11241, Cairo, Egypt; Saudi Arabia
Abdalwahab K. R. Alzhrani
PhD Student; Saudi Arabia
Mahtab Ahmad
Soil Sciences Department, College of Food & Agricultural Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia; Saudi Arabia
Adel R. A. Usman
1-Soil Sciences Department, College of Food & Agricultural Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia 2-Faculty of Agriculture, Soil Science Department, Assiut University, Egypt; Saudi Arabia
Dinesh Mohan
School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India; India
Yong Sik Ok
Korea Biochar Research Center & Department of Biological Environment, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 200-701, South Korea; Korea, Democratic People's Republic Of
Mohammad I. Al-Wabel
Mohammad I. Al-Wabel, PhD Soil Sciences Department College of Food and agriculture Sciences P O Box 89770 Riyadh, 11692 Saudi Arabia Tel: +966-1-467-8441 Fax: +966-1-467-8440; Saudi Arabia
Conocarpus pruning waste, an agricultural byproduct, was converted into low-cost activated and non-activated carbons and used for the remediation of Cd2+, Cu2+, and Pb2+ from aqueous solutions. The carbonization was carried out at 400 °C, while the activation was carried out in the presence of KOH and ZnCl2. Batch single-solute and multi-solute equilibrium and kinetic experiments were carried out to determine the adsorption capacities of the prepared activated and non-activated carbons, and these were further compared with commercially available activated carbon. The results showed that KOH-activated carbon (CK) outperformed the other activated and non-activated carbons in terms of adsorption efficiency. CK removed >50% of the applied Cd2+ and Cu2+ and 100% of Pb2+ at the initial concentration of 40 mg L-1. Interestingly, the performance of Conocarpus-derived non-activated carbon was better than that of the commercial activated carbon, as observed from the Langmuir maximum adsorption capacities of 65.61, 66.12, and 223.05 µmol g-1 for Cd2+, Cu2+, and Pb2+, respectively. The Pb2+ was the metal most easily removed from aqueous solution because of its large ionic radius. The kinetic dynamics were well described by the pseudo-second order and Elovich models.
