Study on adsorption of methylene blue on activated carbon from pinang frond using an experimental design to determine the optimum operating parameters

Abstract

Abstract In textile industries, the dyes are commonly used and creating a waste of dye in drainage stream water. To overcome this matter, the removal of dyes are needed by using activated carbon. The precursors of activated carbon can be prepared by various organic materials with high level of carbon content. Pinang frond was being selected for precursor of activated carbon in this study, and named as PFAC. This PFAC was used to adsorb methylene blue (MB) as a media for removal of MB. The aim of this study is to determine the optimum operating parameters such as CO2 flow rate (mL/min), activation time (hour) and activation temperature (°C)for the better removal of MB by using response surface methodology (RSM) as an experimental design (DoE). The 476 mL/min CO2 flow rate, 6.0 hour activation time, and 867°C activation temperature were become the optimum operating parameters of PFAC in this study.The model developed by RSM shows that less than 2.5% error in comparison with the experimental data, hence it can be used for prediction of the fixed responses of operating parameters. The pseudo-first-order model was matched with the MB adsorption kinetic.