Removal of 3-Chlorophenol from Aqueous Solution by Adsorption Using Oil Palm Shell Activated Carbon with Na2CO3

Activated carbon prepared from the oil palm shell (OPSAC) was investigated for removal of 3-chlorophenol (3CP) in aqueous solution through the adsorption process. The effects of solution pH, agitation time, and initial concentrations were evaluated. The results showed that the adsorption increased as the contact time increased and the initial concentration decreased, while the high adsorption was at pH=2. The high Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area, the total volume of pore and the average pore diameter were equal to 1743 m2/g, 0.68 cm3/ g and 2.31 nm, respectively. The functional groups and surface morphology of the OPSAC was determined by using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin isotherm models were used for analyzing the adsorption equilibrium data. Adsorption data were fitted better with Langmuir isotherm, with a maximum monolayer adsorption capacity (qmax) of 320.51 mg/g. The pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order equations were used for describing the adsorption kinetics. The results were found to follow the pseudo-second-order model with correlation coefficients (R2) equal to 0.999 for all concentrations. Oil palm shell-activated carbon was shown to be a capable adsorbent for removing 93.60 % of 30 mg/L of 3CP from aqueous solutions at 30 °C.