Effect of phosphoric acid and temperature profile on pine cone based activated carbon production and its effectiveness in the removal of Congo red dye by adsorption

Abstract

This study was developed to synthesize a chemically activated carbon from Australian raw pine cone and to evaluate its effectiveness as a low cost adsorbent in the removal of anionic dyes such as Congo red from aqueous solution. Pine cone is a natural and low-cost agricultural by-product. The effects of various phosphoric acid concentrations and temperature profiles on activated carbon production were studied. Synthesized activated carbon samples were characterized by bulk density, particle size distribution and CHNS analysis. Batch adsorption experiments were carried out under different physico- chemical process parameters such as solution pH and adsorbent dose. It was observed that the adsorption process was pH dependent and the maximum adsorption occurred at low pH. Also, it was found that amount of dye adsorbed per unit activated carbon qt (mg/g) was decreasing al higher initial adsorbent dose. These results suggest that pine cone is a good and low cost feed material for the production of biomass activated carbon.