Optimization of banana trunk-activated carbon production for methylene blue-contaminated water treatment

Abstract

This experiment was run to characterize the banana trunk-activated carbon through methylene blue dye adsorption property. The H 3 PO 4 chemical activating agent was used to produce activated carbons from the banana trunk. A small rotatable central composite design of response surface methodology was adopted to prepare chemically (H 3 PO 4 ) activated carbon from banana trunk. Three operating variables such as activation time (50-120 min), activation temperature (450-850 °C), and activating agent concentration (1.5-7.0 mol/L) play a significant role in the adsorption capacities (q) of activated carbons against methylene blue dye. The results implied that the maximum adsorption capacity of fixed dosage (4.0 g/L) banana trunk-activated carbon was achieved at the activation time of 51 min, the activation temperature of 774 °C, and H 3 PO 4 concentration of 5.09 mol/L. At optimum conditions of preparation, the obtained banana trunk-activated carbon has adsorption capacity 64.66 mg/g against methylene blue. Among the prepared activated carbons run number 3 (prepared with central values of the operating variables) was characterized through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, field emission scanning microscopy, and powder X-ray diffraction.

Removal of methylene blue dye from aqueous solution by nonliving lichen (Pseudevernia furfuracea (L.) Zopf.), as a novel biosorbent

“…When the temperature was increased from 298 to 318 K, the biosorption efficiency increased slightly from 61.20 to 72.18% (Table 1). The results of the published studies on the removal of MB with different adsorbents at different temperatures are consistent with our results (Danish et al 2018;Wang et al 2018;and Khalili et al 2018).…”

“…6a-c). Similar results have been reported by Zeng et al (2015), Danish et al (2018), Wang et al (2018) and Khalili et al (2018).…”

“…These results showed that the biosorption of MB on the LPF follows well the PSO kinetics. Some authors have reported that adsorption of MB on different adsorbents fits well into the PSO kinetic model (Danish et al 2018;Ho 2006). The rate constants k 2 , were found as 0.0024, 0.0045 and 0.0116 g mg −1 min −1 at 298, 308 and 318 K, respectively (Table 2).…”

“…Sivalingam et al (2019) reported that the rate of adsorption of MB on different adsorbents followed PSO kinetics and rate constant values were determined as 0.0035, 0.0010 and 0.0089 g mg −1 min −1 for coal fly ash (CFA), nanozeolite (nFAZX) and commercial zeolite (CZX), respectively. Danish et al (2018) were reported that the adsorption of MB on activated carbon derived from banana trunk (BTAC) followed PSO model kinetic and the rate constant k 2 was found as 0.056 min −1 . Moghazy et al…”

“…Many researchers have investigated to utilize cheap adsorbents to remove MB dye from wastewater. Some biological materials such as agricultural waste, some plants, fruit peels, even fungi and algae were used as cheap and effective adsorbents and called as biosorbents (Subramaniam and Ponnusamy 2015;Adegoke and Bello 2015;Sivalingam et al 2019;Danish et al 2018). Moghazy et al (2019) investigated that micro-grinded dried biomass of two macro-algal species as complementary biosorbent materials for MB removal from wastewater.…”