Use of activated charcoal as bio-adsorbent for treament of residual waters: a review

Abstract

Adsorption is gaining attention by becoming one of the most used technologies for the removal of contaminants from water. Adsorption with activated charcoal (AC) is an efficient method for treatment of effluents; the main advantage of AC production is the use of residues that would be inappropriate discarded. The objective of this work was to gather and organize the information available about the potential of using activated charcoal as a bio-adsorbent. Researches were conducted on scientific articles about the production of activated charcoal with adsorption characteristics for the removal of contaminants from residual waters. The efficiency of this technique is dependent on different parameters that affect the adsorption process, such as: pH of the solution, dye initial concentration, contact time, adsorbent amount, and temperature. The articles studied showed that the bio-adsorbent characteristics of charcoals are promising for the removal of pollutants from residual waters. The isotherm adsorption models developed by Langmuir, Freundlich, and Brunauer, Emmett, and Teller (BET) are often used to evaluate the adsorption capacity of activated charcoals.