Utilization of activated carbon derived from waste plastic for decontamination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons laden wastewater

Abstract

Serious environmental deterioration caused by synthetic waste plastics, and the pollution of freshwater resources are the most alarming and remarkable challenges of the 21st century. Therefore, immense scientific efforts are being paid towards the management of waste plastics and treatment of polluted water. The current study is report the utilization of waste polyethylene terephthalate (wPET) and waste polystyrene (wPS) for fabrication of activated carbon (AC) and its application for the removal of hazardous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) pollutants from water. AC was prepared from wPET and wPS by carbonization under N2 atmosphere followed by chemical activation with 1M KOH and 1M HCl. The AC was characterized by SEM, surface area analysis (SAA), and FT-IR spectroscopy. Adsorption of PAHs from aqueous solutions through AC was examined by batch adsorption tests. The optimum parameters for maximum adsorption of PAHs were found to be; initial PAHs concentration 40 ppm, 2 h contact time, pH 3, 5, and 7, 50 °C temperature and adsorbent dose of 0.8 g. Kinetic and isotherm models were applied to evaluate the adsorbent capacity for PAHs adsorption. The kinetic study shows that the adsorption of these PAHs onto AC follows the pseudo-second-order kinetics. The experimental results demonstrated that Langmuir isotherm model best fitted the data. The thermodynamic factors calculated such as entropy change (ΔS°), enthalpy change (ΔS°) and free energy change (ΔG°) show that the adsorption process is non-spontaneous and endothermic in nature. Results were also compared with the efficiencies of some commercial adsorbents used in practice. This examination revealed that the novel plastic derived AC possesses a large potential for elimination and recovery of PAHs elimination from industrial wastewater.

Plastic recycling and their use as raw material for the synthesis of carbonaceous materials

“…al., [ 104 ] show a study for the synthesis of activated carbon from PET waste by pyrolysis under N 2 environmental; also, Ilyas et. al., [ 105 ] produce activated carbon from PETs bottles under controlled conditions (inert atmosphere at high temperature). Therefore, the operational conditions could be modified according to the specific structure, then the rapid, medium, and high pyrolysis could produce different activated carbons with different properties.…”

Development of gold(i) phosphorescent tweezers for sensing applications

“…32 As a consequence, they can accumulate in remote places 33 and enter the human food chain. 34 It has been demonstrated that these pollutants alter specific and non-specific immunities in fish and mammals 35 and can also affect pregnant women, developing health issues in the embryo. 36 On the other hand, PFCs show very stable carbon-fluoride bonds and so their degradation under environmental conditions does not occur easily.…”

Construction of a novel double network polymer composite and evaluation of its highly efficient adsorption properties for copper ions

“…Heavy metals are common pollutants found in various industrial effluents, which have represented a serious threat to the environment and the human being because of their toxic and lethal effects, and adsorption technique is a promising method that is very important to remove the refractory pollutants from solution system because of its facile operation processes and high efficiency. Therefore, efficient adsorbents become the decisive factor in the adsorption process of heavy metals ions, and the researches on exploring the novel adsorbents with high efficiency for heavy metals adsorption become very essential 4–15 . The development of double network polymer adsorbents for heavy metals adsorption, generally which are prepared by using poly‐blending two kinds of polymer precursor, is highly desirable and is a main challenge in recent years 16–18 .…”