Indirect plant-based surfactant impregnated activated carbon for adsorption: article / Nadzarul Azwan Azhari and Siti Wahidah Puasa

Activated carbon is widely used in removing toxic substances and contaminants in wastewater. However, removal of metals and inorganic wastes is nearly inefficient when using activated carbon-based adsorption as it removes organic compounds. Surface modification and impregnation method were used to improve surface adsorption and to produce high selectivity to carbon. In this study, surfactant is used to impregnate with the activated carbon to improve the adsorption efficiency and the reaction itself. Indirect impregnation was selected to modify the surface of activated carbon with surfactant in removing 25 ppm of RB4 dye. Various parameters such as surfactant loading, operating temperature and initial pH of the solution were studied to obtain an optimum condition for adsorption of Reactive Blue 4 dye. The best condition of 135 mg/L of surfactant loading at 60°C in weakly acidic condition has been achieved with maximum percentage of 71.47% removal efficiency in 4 hours of treatment. It was observed that modification of activated carbon by indirect impregnation with surfactant has effectively removed RB4 dye because of the strong interaction between the activated carbon and surfactant that increased the number of active site on the surface.