Microwave-assisted activated carbon from passion fruit peel for methylene blue dye removal

Abstract

The adsorption of methylene blue (MB) dye onto passion fruit peel based activated carbon (PFPAC) was investigated in a batch study. Passion fruit peel undergoes physical activation process which involves microwave irradiation and carbon dioxide gasification to prepare PFPAC. The optimum preparation conditions were obtained from response surface methodology (RSM) at radiation power and activation time of 616 W and 6.24 minutes, respectively which resulted in 85.66% MB removal and 39.9% PFPAC yield. Optimized PFPAC has high surface area, pore volume and fixed carbon content and average pore diameter of 782.3 m2/g, 0.422 cm3/g and 0.295 nm, respectively. Freundlich isotherm model fitted well the adsorption equilibrium data. The adsorption kinetic was found to follow the pseudo-second-order kinetic model.The adsorption of methylene blue (MB) dye onto passion fruit peel based activated carbon (PFPAC) was investigated in a batch study. Passion fruit peel undergoes physical activation process which involves microwave irradiation and carbon dioxide gasification to prepare PFPAC. The optimum preparation conditions were obtained from response surface methodology (RSM) at radiation power and activation time of 616 W and 6.24 minutes, respectively which resulted in 85.66% MB removal and 39.9% PFPAC yield. Optimized PFPAC has high surface area, pore volume and fixed carbon content and average pore diameter of 782.3 m2/g, 0.422 cm3/g and 0.295 nm, respectively. Freundlich isotherm model fitted well the adsorption equilibrium data. The adsorption kinetic was found to follow the pseudo-second-order kinetic model.