Composite Activated Carbon from Canarium schweinfurthii/Polyethylene Terephthalate: Adsorption Test of Rhodamine B Dye Removal in Aqueous Solution

The present work deals on one hand with the valorization of wastes plastics, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and Canarium schweinfurthii (CS) for the preparation of polyethylene terephthalate activated carbon (PETAC) and Canarium schweinfurthii/polyethylene terephthalate activated carbon (CS/PETAC). These adsorbents, on the other hand, were used for removal Rhodamine B (RhB) in an aqueous solution. PET and CS precursors were subjected to thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning colorimetry (DSC). Meanwhile PETAC and CS/PETAC were characterized using scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and nitrogen adsorption/desorption (N2-BET). The N2-BET results revealed an increase of the specific surface area from 6.75 m2/g to 1282.0 m2/g for PETAC and CS/PETAC. The results of characterization indicated the key role played by plastic wastes to enhance the structural and functional properties of CS/PETAC. The RhB removal from the aqueous solution onto PETAC and CS/PETAC was found to be independent of pH, with an optimal contact time of RhB removal within 10 min for materials. The non-linear adsorption isotherm data for the adsorption process showed that the Langmuir and Freundlich models best fitted the RhB adsorption onto PETAC meanwhile only the Freundlich adsorption isotherm gave the best fit for CS/PETAC according to the correlation coefficient value closed to unity. The pseudo-first and pseudo-second-order kinetic models best described the RhB dye removal on both adsorbents. Additionally, the Elovich model confirmed that chemisorption was the main mechanism followed. These findings proved that CS seeds and PET wastes are low-cost precursors that should be given an added value by transforming them into an outstanding carbon material for dye removal in liquid effluent.