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.