Adsorption of 4-chlorophenol from aqueous solution using activated carbon synthesized from aloe vera green wastes

Abstract

In this study, activated carbon synthesized from Aloe vera green wastes was used as a sorbent to remove 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) from aqueous solutions. The influence of contact time (0-100 minutes), pH (2-8), adsorbent dosage (1-9 g/l), and initial 4-CP concentration (10-60 mg/l) in batch system was investigated on the sorption. The sorbent was specified using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Equilibrium for 4-CP sorption was reached at contact time of 40 minutes. The pH of 2 was also found to be the optimum pH in the sorption process. Fitting the experimental data to different kinetic and isotherm models illustrated that the experimental data was well fitted by pseudo-second order kinetic (R2 > 0.98) and Freundlich isotherm (R2 > 0.99) models. According to the results, activated carbon prepared from Aloe vera green wastes is a low-cost effective option for the sorption of 4-CP from aqueous solutions.