Magnetic-Activated Carbon Fabric for Removal of Copper and Cadmium Ions: Kinetics and Thermodynamics Studies

This is the first report on improving activated carbon fabric (ACF) as an adsorbent for the removal of heavy metals. Magnetic-activated carbon fabric (MACF) was synthesized from waste cotton fabric using a sonosynthesis method with iron salt for removing Cu²⁺ and Cd²⁺ ions from aqueous solutions. MACFs were characterized with BET, FT-IR, and VSM methods. Optimal conditions for ions removal were pH = 4 for 50 mg L⁻¹ initial concentration of Cu²⁺ and Cd²⁺ with 1.5 g L⁻¹ MACF at 20 ± 1 °C and 200 rpm for 1 h. The equilibrium data of adsorption thermodynamics, isotherms, and kinetics of Cu²⁺ and Cd²⁺ using MACF was investigated. The highest regression values of 0.9998 and 0.9750 were obtained by the Langmuir model among other models for adsorption isotherm using MAFC for Cu²⁺ and Cd²⁺ respectively. MACF revealed a higher metal removal of 99.2% for Cu²⁺ and 94.9% for Cd²⁺ for both ions compared to 32% for Cu²⁺ and 28% for Cd²⁺ using ACF. The results indicate that MACF shows superior performance/cost-effective in removing heavy metal ions compared to granules and powder-activated carbons, which can be easily prepared in different dimensions and removed from the filter/environment, making it a promising alternative for applications requiring enhanced heavy/toxic metal removal from any solution.