Activated carbon from pencil peel waste for effective removal of cationic crystal violet dye from aqueous solutions

Abstract

In this investigation, the pencil peel (PP) is utilized as a scavenger for adsorptive removal of crystal violet (CV) dye. Pencil peel activated carbon (PPAC) is produced through a straightforward physical activation method by annealing pencil peel in a muffle furnace at 300 °C. The prepared PPAC shows the mesoporous nature having specific surface area of 217.44 m² g⁻¹. The highest uptake of CV dye was observed at equilibrium as working solution pH-8.0, CV dye concentration-100 mg L^-1, the PPAC dosage-0.25 g at 200 rpm speed. The observed experimental results align with the Freundlich adsorption isotherm model, suggesting of multilayer adsorption. The kinetic study attributes the uptake rate adheres to the pseudo-second-order kinetic rate model (regression coefficient, R² = 0.99).