Australian pine cones-based activated carbon for adsorption of copper in aqueous solution

The australian pine cones (apcs) was utilised as adsorbent material by physical and chemical activation for the adsorption cu(ii) in aqueous solution. ftir and sem analysis were conducted to obtain the active site and to characterise the surface morphology of the apcs activated carbon (apcs ac) prepared through pyrolysis at 1073.15 k and alkaline activation of naoh. the independent variables effect such as contact time,cu(ii) initial concentration and the activator ratio in the ranges of 0-150 min,84.88-370.21 mg/l and 0.2-0.6 (naoh:apcs ac),respectively on the cu(ii) adsorption capacity were investigated in the apcs activated carbon-solution (apcs acs) system with 1 g the apcs ac in 100 ml cu(ii) aqueous solution with magnetic stirring at 75 rpm,room temperature of 298.15 k (± 2 k),1 atm and ph 5 (±0.25). as the results,cu(ii) adsorption capacity dramatically increased with increasing contact time and cu(ii) initial concentration. the optimal cu(ii) adsorption capacity of 26.71 mg/g was obtained in the apcs acs system with 120-min contact time,340.81 m/l initial cu(ii) and 0.6 activator ratio. the kinetics study showed the cu(ii) adsorption kinetics followed the pseudo-second-order kinetics with 27.03 mg/g of adsorption capacity,0.09 g/mg.min of rate constant and 0.985-r2. in addition,the cu(ii) adsorption isotherm followed the langmuir model with 12.82 mg/g of the mono-layer adsorption capacity,42.93 l/g of the over-all adsorption capacity and 0.954-r2. © school of engineering,taylor’s university.