Adsorbent material from pomegranate (Punica granatum) leaves: Optimization on removal of methylene blue using response surface methodology

Pomegranate (punica granatum) leaves are an important source of potentially healthy bioactive compounds and according to our study,activated carbon prepared from leaves of pomegranate has become an excellent organic pollutant and heavy metals adsorbent. an experimental setup based on the central composite design (ccd) with three factor interaction was implemented in order to optimizing the conditions for the preparation of this adsorbent material. the effects of the activation temperature,activation time,and chemical impregnation ratios on the carbon yield and methylene blue (mb) removal were investigated. the optimum conditions for preparing activated carbon from leaves of pomegranate were found to be activation temperature of 723°k,activation time of 2h 24min,and chemical impregnation ratio of 1.45. the carbon yield was found to be 60.6% while the removal of mb was found to be 90.5%.