A study of adsorption characteristics of activated carbon material for typical organic and inorganic pollutants

The paper presents the results of adsorption studies on the developed activated carbon material (AM), obtained by two activation methods – with one (AM1) and two activators (AM2), respectively, as well as its compacted versions (AMK) using polyvinyl alcohol (PVА), polyvinyl acetate (PVAС) and basalt fiber (BF) as binders, with regard to typical pollutants of aquatic environments – organic dyes and heavy metals. The carbon materials sorption capacity was assessed by the ability to remove dye molecules – “methylene blue” (MB) and “sunset yellow” (SY) using spectrophotometric analysis, as well as by the ability to remove heavy metal salts – lead (Pb²⁺) using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. As a result of adsorption kinetic studies, the absorption capacity of the starting material, activated and compacted materials was determined. The sorption capacity for lead for the materials carbonisate and AMK1 was 71 and 65 mg×g^–1, respectively, the optimal sorption time was 30 minutes; for the materials AM1, AM2, AMK1/PVА, AMK1/PVAС and AMK1/BF 65, 66, 49, 45, 42 mg×g^–1 accordingly, the optimal sorption time was 15 min. For MB and SY dyes, the parameters were 1000 – 2010 mg×g^–1, 66 – 972 mg×g^–1 and 15 min, respectively. To analyze the adsorption mechanisms using kinetic relationships and sorption isotherms, empirical equations of pseudo-first and pseudo-second order, Elovich equation and intraparticle diffusion model were used. The presented results show the possibility of using the developed activated carbon material as an effective sorbent of organic and inorganic pollutants from aqueous solutions.