Methylene blue adsorption and preparation of silver bound to activated carbon with sol-gel method

In this study activated carbon was prepared with the chemical activation of horse chestnut shell and H3PO4. Impregnation time was identified as 24 hours, impregnation ratio was identified as 1:3 and carbonization temperature was determined as 600°C in the chemical activation conducted with H3PO4. Nitrogen gas with 150 mL/min flow speed was crossed during the carbonization process. The reduction of Ag+ was performed as the result of the ion dipole interaction of Nano-composites activated by well distributed silver Nano-particles by adding AgNO3 on the functionalized AK surface. Surface area of silver (AK/Ag) nano-composites which was prepared with activated carbon and sol gel method was calculated by using Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) surface area calculated method depending on the N2 adsorption at 77K and as the highest surface area was found 982 m2/g for activated carbons, the highest surface area for AK/Ag-1 was found as 658.488 m2/g. Adsorption features and characterization of silver which was added to activated carbon that contains the highest surface area oxygen containing activated carbons were examined. Micro-structure and surface morphologies of the AK/Ag nano-composite samples were examined with SEM. As the silver amount that was tied to the activated carbon via X-Ray Diffraction has increased, it was identified that the crystals were more vivid. Dye removal processes were performed with AK/Ag-1 with 658.488 m2/g surface area and qmax value was calculated as 416.66 mg/g.