Honeycomb-like porous activated carbon for efficient copper (II) adsorption synthesized from natural source: Kinetic study and equilibrium isotherm analysis

The preparation of cost-effective potentially efficient adsorbents of metal pollutants by activated carbons from the natural sources is the challenging research to the scientific community. In the present study, the characteristic features of highly potential activated carbon synthesized from various natural sources are reported. Among the synthesized activated carbons, the best one by its surface area is applied for the analysis of its kinetics and isotherms for copper (II) adsorption. Four different seeds and three leaves were used as the precursors in a chemical activation (three-step) process composed of the impregnation, carbonization and subsequent activation to produce the activated carbons. As per present investigation, Indian gooseberry seeds mixed with their shells showed the highest BET surface area of 1360 m(2)/g. The maximum adsorptivity of the activated carbon was found to be 66.79 mg/g at 60 degrees C. The adsorption followed pseudo-second-order and Elovich model kinetics with the Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) adsorption isotherms and was spontaneous and endothermic in nature. This AC could be used as a suitable cost-effective copper (II) adsorbent in water purification processes. Moreover, the ACs could be reused after regeneration with high removal efficiency.