Microwave-assisted rubberwood sawdust based activated carbon for adsorption of methylene blue dye: Equilibrium, kinetic and thermodynamic studies

In this work, rubberwood sawdust based activated carbon (RSAC) was produced for the kinetic, equilibrium and thermodynamic studies of methylene blue (MB) dye adsorption from aqueous solution. Batch adsorption experiments were conducted to examine the effects of initial dye concentration and contact time, temperature and solution pH on the MB dye removal. The equilibrium data best fit the Langmuir isotherm with maximum monolayer adsorption capacities of 344.83 mg/g at temperature of 303 K. The kinetic modelling showed that the experimental data followed the pseudo second order model. The thermodynamic data showed that MB dye adsorption was spontaneous, endothermic, and a physisorption reaction.