Activated carbons were prepared from sewage sludge by chemical activation with pyrolusite (PAC) to develop an efficient adsorbent for phosphate removal from aqueous solution. One percent (wt.) pyrolusite addition was proved to have an important effect on pore formation of the produced carbon. PAC showed 17.06% larger BET surface area than the sewage sludge-based activated carbon without modification (SAC). The adsorption results showed that the phosphate removal by PAC was 13% higher than SAC's. The adsorption experiments also showed that PAC had very good performance with high phosphate removal rate (ca. 90%) in a wild pH range (pH ¼ 4-8), and could be stable after 30 min reaction. Adsorption isotherm and kinetics studies demonstrated that phosphate adsorption onto the modified adsorbent was well fitted by the Langmuir isotherm and could be described by the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The modified sewage sludge-based activated carbons were effective and alternative adsorbents for the removal of phosphorous from aqueous solution due to their considerable adsorptive capacities and the low-cost renewable sources.

Operation experiments were conducted to optimize the preparation of activated carbons from corn cob. The Cr(VI) adsorption capacity of the produced activated carbons was also evaluated. The impact of the adsorbent dosage, contact time, initial solution pH and temperature was studied. The results showed that the produced corn cob activated carbon had a good Cr(VI) adsorptive capacity; the theoretical maximum adsorption was 34.48 mg g(-1) at 298 K. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller and iodine adsorption value of the produced activated carbon could be 924.9 m(2) g(-1) and 1,188 mg g(-1), respectively. Under the initial Cr(VI) concentration of 10 mg L(-1) and the original solution pH of 5.8, an adsorption equilibrium was reached after 4 h, and Cr(VI) removal rate was from 78.9 to 100% with an adsorbent's dosage increased from 0.5 to 0.7 g L(-1). The kinetics and equilibrium data agreed well with the pseudo-second-order kinetics model and the Langmuir isotherm model. The equilibrium adsorption capacity improved with the increment of the temperature.

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