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Adsorption of mercury (II) ion from aqueous solution using low‐cost activated carbon prepared from mango kernel
Author(s) -
Somayajula Anusha,
Aziz Azrina Abd,
Saravanan Pichiah,
Matheswaran Manickam
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
asia‐pacific journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.348
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1932-2143
pISSN - 1932-2135
DOI - 10.1002/apj.1613
Subject(s) - adsorption , activated carbon , aqueous solution , enthalpy , chemistry , freundlich equation , langmuir , diffusion , langmuir adsorption model , analytical chemistry (journal) , nuclear chemistry , thermodynamics , chromatography , physics
A low‐cost activated carbon (AC) was prepared from mango kernel through chemical activation with ZnCl 2 . The adsorption capacity of AC was investigated for the removal of Hg(II) from aqueous solution as batch experiments using varying initial adsorbent dosage, pH, equilibrium time and temperature. The prepared AC had a Brunauer‐Emmett‐Teller surface area of 920 m 2 g −1 and total pore volume of 0.341 cm 3 g −1 , respectively. A maximum removal of 92% was achieved with an initial Hg(II) concentration of 10 mg L −1 , pH 6.5 and adsorbent dose of 3 g L −1 . The obtained kinetic experimental data were fitted to pseudo‐first‐order, pseudo‐second‐order and intraparticle diffusion models, respectively. Among the models, the pseudo‐second‐order adsorption model was found to fit better, with a coefficient of regression ( R 2 ) > 0.95. The equilibrium data were also fitted to the Langmuir and Freundlich equilibrium isotherm models. Both the models were found to provide a better fitting with coefficient of regression ( R 2 ) > 0.98. The enthalpy of adsorption was found to be 7.2 kJ mol −1 . © 2012 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.