Scientific Reports (Feb 2023)

Orange peels magnetic activate carbon (MG-OPAC) composite formation for toxic chromium absorption from wastewater

  • Asmaa Khalil,
  • Mohamed Salem,
  • Safaa Ragab,
  • Mika Sillanpää,
  • Ahmed El Nemr

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-30161-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1
pp. 1 – 17

Abstract

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Abstract This work prepared a composite of orange peels magnetic activated carbon (MG-OPAC). The prepared composite was categorized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and vibrating-sample magnetometer (VSM) analyses. The MG-OPAC composite showed the surface area (155.09 m2/g), the total volume of pores (0.1768 cm3/g), and the mean diameter of pores (4.5604 nm). The saturation magnetization (Ms = 17.283 emu/g), remanence (Mr = 0.28999 emu/g) and coercivity (Hc = 13.714 G) were reported for the prepared MG-OPAC. Likewise, at room temperature, the MG-OPAC was in a super-paramagnetic state, which could be collected within 5 S (< 5 S) with an outside magnetic field. Influence of time of contact, absorbent dose, starting concentration of Cr6+ ions, and pH were tested to adjust the absorption process. The absorption behavior of MG-OPAC for hexavalent chromium was investigated by Langmuir (LIM), Freundlich (FIM) and Temkin (TIM) isotherm models (IMs). Applicability of LIM specifies that Cr6+ ions absorption procedure may be monolayer absorption. The maximum monolayer capacity (Q m) premeditated by LIM was 277.8 mg/g. Similarly, the absorption process was tested with different kinetic models like intraparticle diffusion (IPDM), pseudo-first-order (PFOM), Elovich (EM), pseudo-second-order (PSOM), and Film diffusion (FDM). The PSOM was best fitted to the experimental results of Cr6+ ions absorption with R 2 ranging between 0.992 and 1.