Structured carbon foam derived from waste biomass: application to endocrine disruptor adsorption

Abstract

In this paper, a novel structured carbon foam has been prepared from argan nut shell (ANS) was developed and applied in bisphenol A (BPA) removal from water. The results showed that the prepared carbon foam remove 93% of BPA (60 mg/L). The BPA equilibrium data obeyed the Liu isotherm, displaying a maximum uptake capacity of 323.0 mg/g at 20 °C. The calculated free enthalpy change (∆H° = − 4.8 kJ/mol) indicated the existence of physical adsorption between BPA and carbon foam. Avrami kinetic model was able to explain the experimental results. From the regeneration tests, we conclude that the prepared carbon foam has a good potential to be used as an economic and efficient adsorbent for BPA removal from contaminated water. Based on these results and the fact that the developed structured carbon foam is very easy to separate from treated water, it can serve as an interesting material for real water treatment applications.