Investigation of adsorption and electrosorption of metal ions from aqueous solutions onto activated carbon cloth using ion selective electrodes

In this work the removal of metal ions (Cu2+, Cd2+, Pb2+) from aqueous solutions by adsorption/electrosorption at the high specific surface area carbon-cloth was studied. The changes in concentrations of metal ions after adsorption process were analyzed by ion selective electrodes. Electrosorption was achieved by polarizing activated carbon cloth at -0.1, -0.2 and -0.3V for a period of 120 minutes. The concentration of metal ions in the solution after electrosorption was determined using both ion selective electrodes and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy. Generally, better results were obtained for the removal of metal ions from aqueous solutions by electrosorption technique compared to adsorption technique. It was observed that an increase in negative potential increases the amount of the electrosorption of metal ions onto high area activated carbon cloth. It was determined that the amount of electrosorption of metal ions onto activated carbon cloth increases in order of Cd(II ) < Cu (II) < Pb(II). It was found that due to the interference effect in the determination of metal ion concentrations by ion selective electrodes during electrosorption, the results may have some error.