Removal of Phosphate from the Aqueous Environment Using Iron Oxide/Activated Carbon Composites: Activated Carbon Derived from Ziziphus Nuts as a New Precursor

Ziziphus nuts are abundant in Khuzestan province, Iran, and are considered as an unwanted natural biomass waste. The present study is aimed to develop low-cost activated carbon from Ziziphus nuts as a new precursor for the removal of phosphate from the water environment.the iron oxide modification w...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Behnam mousazadeh, Nima mohammadi, Touba hamoule
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Iranian Association of Chemical Engineering (IAChE) 2021-09-01
Series:Iranian Journal of Chemical Engineering
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Online Access:https://www.ijche.com/article_144893_f077283d3ca7b3e530143b2d03985f3c.pdf
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Summary:Ziziphus nuts are abundant in Khuzestan province, Iran, and are considered as an unwanted natural biomass waste. The present study is aimed to develop low-cost activated carbon from Ziziphus nuts as a new precursor for the removal of phosphate from the water environment.the iron oxide modification was performed to simultaneously facilitate the adsorbent separation via a simple magnetic process and increase the phosphate removal capacity. The iron oxide/activated carbon composite (IOAC) was characterized using XRD, EDX, SEM, and BET methods. The specific surface area for IOAC reached 569.41 m2/g, comparable to that of the commercial activated carbon. While other similar derived-from-biomasses activated carbon reached the phosphate removal capacity of around 15 mg/g, IOAC demonstrated the excellent phosphate removal performance of as high as 27 mg/g. Also, IOAC showed fast adsorption kinetics, achieving equilibrium in only 60 minutes. According to the results, the pseudo-second-order kinetic model was more consistent with the data related to the phosphate adsorption onto the adsorbent than the pseudo-first-order model. The adsorption results using Langmuir, Freundlich, and Webber-Morris diffusion models were interpreting. The maximum Langmuir adsorption capacity was calculated to be 27 mg/L. The adsorbent was removed from the aqueous solution via a simple magnetic process.
ISSN:1735-5397
2008-2355