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Effective impregnation for the preparation of magnetic mesoporous carbon: application to dye adsorption
Author(s) -
Saroyan Hayarpi S,
Giannakoudakis Dimitrios A,
Sarafidis Charalampos S,
Lazaridis Nikolaos K,
Deliyanni Eleni A
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of chemical technology and biotechnology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.64
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1097-4660
pISSN - 0268-2575
DOI - 10.1002/jctb.5210
Subject(s) - adsorption , mesoporous material , carbon fibers , chemical engineering , activated carbon , chemistry , nanotechnology , materials science , organic chemistry , catalysis , engineering , composite material , composite number
Abstract BACKGROUND In this study, magnetic mesoporous activated carbons were synthesized either via co‐precipitation of iron salts onto activated carbon or via impregnation of activated carbon with magnetic nanoparticles by sonication. The resulting impregnated carbons were examined as adsorbents for the removal of Reactive Black 5 ( RB5 ) from aqueous solutions. RESULTS The magnetic nanocomposites were characterized by various techniques (nitrogen adsorption, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction, vibrating sample magnetometry, and scanning electron microscope measurements). The results of characterization analyses revealed that co‐precipitation was unsuccessful for the preparation of magnetic carbon while sonication led to a super‐paramagnetic activated carbon. Adsorption studies revealed that although magnetic carbon presented a decreased adsorption capacity compared with raw carbon, it was an acceptable dye adsorbent. High pH and high ionic strength values favored dye adsorption, while the data of adsorption isotherms and kinetics were better fitted by the Freundlich isotherm model and the pseudo‐second‐order kinetic model, respectively. Regeneration of dye‐loaded activated carbons by thermal re‐activation and re‐use of regenerated samples were also investigated. CONCLUSION Mesoporous magnetic activated carbon, with a saturation magnetization of 18 emu g −1 , was successfully synthesized by sonication of activated carbon and magnetite nanoparticles. The magnetic carbon was found to be an adequate dye adsorbent with a maximum adsorption capacity of 445.294 mg g −1 . © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry