Pyrolytic Preparation of Active Carbons from Peanut Shell Biomass for Adsorptive Elimination of Fluoride from Groundwater of Shekhawati Region

Abstract

Groundwater toxicants such as fluoride and nitrate are well known for their detrimental effects on human and animal health worldwide. Agricultural waste biomass is available in abundance in rural areas with much capacity to produce porous biochar by simple, environmentally friendly and cost-effective methods. In the study, Peanut shell biomass was used to prepare active carbons by a simple, facile pyrolytic method and demonstrated for adsorption of fluoride ions from groundwater collected from Shekhawati region of Rajasthan, India. The amorphous porous activated carbon, PSAC, was made using a pyrolytic method at a maximum temperature of 550 °C with alkaline stimulation and nitrogen flow (SBET = 479.569 m2/g, Vmicro = 0.124 cm3/g). Varied spectrometric gears includes XRD, FTIR, SEM, EDX, BET and pHzpc were equipped to characterize the prepared material. A batch experiment study was performed in investigate different adsorption parameters, adsorption isotherms and kinetic studies. The adsorption investigation shows that the PSAC effectively removed fluoride from aqueous solution, with sorption potential of 7.75 mg/gm capacity and 80 percent removal effectiveness. Adsorption isotherms study showed that Freundlich isotherm was best fitted with equilibrium study with linear regression of 0.993. To evaluate the pseudo-first and pseudo-second-order, as well as intra-particle diffusion concept, kinetic data were examined. Adsorption was followed by a pseudo-second order process, according to a kinetics investigation. Thus, it was expected that the research will increase and improve the economic utilization of peanut shell biomass for water purification.