Removal of Methylene Blue from Aqueous Solutions by Waste Paper Derived Activated Carbon

Background and objectives: activated carbon is an adsorbentwhich is mostly employed in order to remove dye from aqueoussolutions; however, commercial activated carbon is expensiveand this is considered as an obstacle for its usage. therefore,the present study aimed to use waste paper as an inexpensiveprecursor to produce activated carbon.materials and methods: in the present study, koh was used forthe chemical activation process; in order to prevent the precursoroxidation during the carbonization process, a completely sealedfurnace was used. in order to determine the characteristics of theprepared activated carbon texture, n2 gas adsorption and betisotherm were used. moreover, langmuir, freundlich, temkin,and redlich-peterson isotherm models as well as pseudo-firstorder, pseudo-second order, and intra-particle diffusion kineticmodels were used to determine the characteristics of methyleneblue adsorption on the prepared adsorbent.results: according to the results, sbet and vtotal were 66.01m2/g and0.063cc/g, respectively. ferudlich and pseudo-second order modelswere the best isotherm and kinetic models for prediction of themethylene blue adsorption on the produced adsorbent. furthermore,the qmax constant from the langmuir model was obtained as 68.03 mg/g.conclusion: in comparison to other studies, the producedactivated carbon in the present study had a desirable surfacearea and adsorptive capacity for methylene blue adsorptionin aquatic environments. moreover, it seems that preparingactivated carbon from waste newspaper is inexpensive, effective,and environment friendly.