Thermo-chemical sequestration of naphthalene using Borassus flabellifer Shell activated carbon: Effect of influencing parameters, isotherm and kinetic study

Abstract

The present research describes the removal of naphthalene from aq. soln. using one of the simplest agricultural wastes, Borassus flabellifer Shell activated carbon (BFS-AC) by adsorption. Adsorption was chosen due to its cost-effectiveness. The effect of operating parameters such as pH, time, initial concn. of naphthalene, BFS-AC dosage and temp. on the percent removal of naphthalene was detd. The optimum conditions obtained were pH of 7, contact time of 12 h for an optimum concn. of 200 mg/L with the addn. of 8 g at a temp. optimum at 40°C attaining the max. percent removal. The adsorption kinetics supported the Freundlich model with R2 value of 0.995 indicating multilayer adsorption. The chem. kinetic studies followed the pseudo second order mechanism. The characterization of BFS-AC was carried out using SEM (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) which showed the enhanced porosity and crystallinity of the adsorbent which was mainly due to the surface modification carried out by chem. addn. followed by thermal treatment. The initial and final naphthalene concn. after adding the adsorbent was detd. by using gas chromatog.-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The characterization thoroughly suggests the efficacy of B. flabellifer shell to efficiently sequester naphthalene from aq. soln. [on SciFinder(R)]