Adsorption and Kinetic Study of Activated Carbon Produced from Post-Consumer Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) Wastes

Post-consumer polymeric wastes in form of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) can now be considered suitable as a precursor for the synthesis of low-cost activated carbon (AC). This study produced AC from LDPE using sulphuric acid (H2SO4) and potassium hydroxide (KOH) as the activating agent. The reaction conditions for pyrolysis were varied in the range of 0.50 - 2.00 M, 400°C - 500°C, and 45 - 60 minutes. Physico-chemical investigations reveal that AC yield is significantly dependent on both carbonization temperatures and time. The obtained optimum values of 446.50°C and 51.09 mins gave a yield of 24% for the base-activated carbon. The high iodine numbers obtained strongly indicate the presence of large surface area and pore volumes is further confirmed using the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis which reveals the presence of pores on the external surface of the carbons. Fourier Transform Infrared Technique (FTIR) analysis further shows that the synthesized compounds are purely carbon with rich oxy-gen-surface complexes on the surface which is as a result of the introduction of the chemical oxidizing agents. The produced carbons were found to have high adsorption affinity for selected inorganic ions which are: Mn7+, Co2+, and Cr6+. Adsorption isotherm results show the adsorption process to be favourable with the Langmuir isotherm parameter RL having values of <1, while the Freudlich adsorption model was found to perfectly fit the data at selected adsorbent dosages and adsorbate concentrations. The pseu-do-second-order model provides the best correlation for the kinetic analysis. The acid-activated carbon was found to have better adsorption capacities than the base-activated carbon.