Investigation of the adsorption properties of activated carbon doped nanofibers

As in many fields, nanofibers are attracting increasing attention in environmental applications. Since they have unique features due to their size, they enable the design and creation of indispensable products for areas such as filtration, separation, sensor applications and adsorption. Adsorption is defined as the accumulation of adsorbates on a solid adsorbent in a liquid/gas medium. Adsorbent is a solid material that adsorbs dissolved compounds in liquid/gas medium. The importance of adsorbents in wastewater treatment is related to the pollutant removal efficiency of adsorbents. Their performance depends on surface area, morphology and chemical structure. Since these properties combine in nanofibers and activated carbon, activated carbon doped nanofibers were used to remove methylene blue from the aqueous medium in this study. For this purpose, firstly, activated carbon was produced from human hair by chemical activation with sulfuric acid and carbonization processes. Activated carbon was characterized and activated carbon with microporous structure, 561 m2/g BET surface area and 6.5% ash content was obtained. This synthesized activated carbon was added to the silk fibroin electrospinning solution at the ratios of 1%, 5% and 10%. Electrospinning was impossible with 10% activated carbon doped solution and smooth nanofibers were produced with 1% and 5% activated carbon doped solutions. Nanofiber diameters and surface areas were determined by scanning electron microscope (SEM) images and BET surface area measuring device, respectively. The mean diameters of nanofibers without activated carbon, 1% and 5% activated carbon doped nanofibres were calculated as 263±68 nm, 276±69 nm and 283±75 nm, respectively. BET surface areas were found to be 35.43 m2/g, 42.38 m2/g and 43.58 m2/g, respectively. According to the data, it was found that nanofibrous surfaces have good properties for adsorption process. The batch adsorption test performed at two different pH (pH 5 and pH 12), two different temperatures (30 and 50 ℃), three different process times (2, 6, 10 min) and three different adsorbent amounts (5, 10, 15 mg). Ultrasonic bath support was used. According to the test results, 5% activated carbon doped nanofiber exhibited the best performance among nanofiber surfaces. It has been observed that the highest methylene blue removal rate of this nanofibrous surface, which has the ability to remove methylene blue at a ratio of 23.7% to 88.9% according to the changing parameters, is achieved with 15 mg adsorbent, pH 12, and a duration of 10 minutes at 50 ℃. According to all the results obtained, the synthesized activated carbon doped nanofiber surfaces have the potential to remove methylene blue from textile wastewater.