Adsorption of hexavalent chromium from aqueous solution onto corn cobs – activated carbon

Abstract

This study evaluated the performance of a new activated carbon (CCs-AC) produced from corn cobs by boric acid activation for the effective removal of hexavalent chromium, a heavy metal with high potential to pollute the environment, from wastewater. For this purpose, with the help of parameters such as solution pH, contact time, initial Cr(VI) concentration, CCs-AC dose, desorption and temperature, the removal of Cr(VI) ions from aqueous solution by adsorption on CCs-AC was investigated from equilibrium, kinetic and thermodynamic point of view. As a result of the experiments, it was determined that the optimum solution pH was 2.0, the contact time was 4 hours, and the desorption solution was 3.0 M NaOH. From the kinetic data, it was determined that the adsorption was compatible with the pseudo-second order kinetic model and the maximum Cr(VI) adsorption capacity (123.7 mg/g) obtained from the Langmuir isotherm model showed that CCs-AC was of competitive quality with the literature. From the thermodynamic data, the positive ΔH value indicates that the adsorption is endothermic and the value of 12.00 kj/mol indicates that the adsorption is rather chemically driven. The negative ΔG value indicates that the process proceeds spontaneously with an increase in temperature, while the ΔS value indicates an increase in the amount of unused energy.