The preparation of activated carbon from wood-based industrys residue is one of the most environmental friendly solutions of transforming negative-valued wastes to valuable materials. Wood sawdust was first chemically activated using potassium hydroxide, KOH and characterized by nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms measured in Micrometrices ASAP 2020 and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM). By manipulating three different parameters, the optimal activation conditions were found at temperature of 500°C, activation time of 60 min and impregnation ratio of 1:3. Results showed that the BET surface area, total pore volume and diameter of activated carbon were 1876.16 m2g-1, 0.88 cm3g-1and 6.93 nm, respectively. Nitrogen adsorption desorption isotherm analysis proved the existence of mesopores in activated carbon produced, suggesting that it can be effectively used as an adsorption material.

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The objective of this research is to study the potential of using banana peel as a biosorbent in removing heavy metal ions (Cu2+, Zn2+ and Pb2+) and oil/grease particles from industrial waste water. The study emphasizes on the parameters involved in the preparation phase of the banana peel adsorbent, such as particle sizes, activating agent, impregnation ratio, carbonization temperature and duration. Based on the findings, it shows that the adsorption capacity is correlated to the total surface area (SBET), pore volume (VT) and average pore diameter (D) of the materials. Sample A20 yields the highest percentage removal for all tested waste water pollutants, suggesting that banana peel based activated carbon can be used effectively as biosorption material.

This paper investigated the solubility of carbon dioxide (CO2) in an aqueous solution of monoethanolamine (MEA) and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium dibutylphosphate ((BMIM)(DBP)) ionic liquid (IL) hybrid solvents. Aqueous solutions of MEA-(BMIM)(DBP) hybrid solvents containing different concentrations of (BMIM)(DBP) were prepared to exploit the amine’s reactive nature, combined with the IL’s non-volatile nature for CO2 absorption. Response surface methodology (RSM) based on central composite design (CCD) was used to design the CO2 solubility experiments and to investigate the effects of three independent factors on the solubility of CO2 in the aqueous MEA-(BMIM)(DBP) hybrid solvent. The three independent factors were the concentration of (BMIM)(DBP) (0–20 wt.%), temperature (30 °C–60 °C) and pressure of CO2 (2–30 bar). The experimental data were fitted to a quadratic model with a coefficient of determination (R2) value of 0.9791. The accuracy of the developed model was confirmed through additional experiments where the experimental values were found to be within the 95% confidence interval. From the RSM-generated model, the optimum conditions for CO2 absorption in aqueous 30 wt% MEA-(BMIM)(DBP) were 20 wt% of (BMIM)(DBP), a temperature of 41.1 °C and a pressure of 30 bar.