Phenolic compounds from aqueous solution using modified activated carbon
Abstract
This project studies the capability of chemical pre-treated activated carbon (AC)
in adsorbing and separating phenolic compound from aqueous solution. Chemical
treatments such as acidic (HCl) and basic (KOH) treatment were applied on AC. 0.3 mg
of treated AC was placed in 6 different Erlenmeyer flasks containing 50 mL of 5 mg/L
2, 4-dinitrophenol (DNP). The samples were incubated at 25 ±2 oC with rotation speed
of 150 rpm for 6 hours. Absorbance value (A) of each samples were measured and
calculated as the final concentration of DNP. The effects of three parameters; pH,
temperature and contact time is tested by both treated AC. Acidic treatment of AC has a
better adsorption capacibility. The highest percentage of 92 %, 78 % and 64 % occurred
at pH 3, temperature 20 oC and at 2 hours, respectively. For the optimization using
Response Surface Methodology (RSM), the predicted optimized physicochemical
parameters were at pH 4, temperature 40 oC, and 2.5 hours contact time, which resulted
in 100 % removal at the upper limit. Nevertheless, the solution given by RSM analysis
has 89.72 % removal of DNP at pH 4, 20 oC and contact time of 2.5 hours. Validation
result on this solution is 97.66 % for actual (experimental) optimized physicochemical
parameters. The R-squared value obtained by RSM was 0.6005. As for conclusion, this
project is done successfully.