The use of activated carbon obtained from waste biomass in methylene blue adsorption

Activated carbon is a substance that has a long history, is increasingly used, and is used for adsorption purposes. Activated carbon; It can be defined as an adsorbent material whose surface area and pore volume are highly improved with the activation process applied to substances with high carbon content. The raw material is one of the most important factors that determine the activated carbon properties to be prepared. Although there is no limitation for the raw material to be used in activated carbon production, cheap raw materials with low inorganic content and high carbon content are preferred for activated carbon production. Our country has many resources that can be used as raw materials in the production of activated carbon. Among these resources are lignite with high carbon content, abundant reserves, biomass (wood sawdust, fruit seeds and peels, etc.) and industrial wastes. In this research, the solid product (char) obtained as a result of the pyrolysis of the poppy capsule pulp, which is produced as waste in the Afyon Alkaloids Factory, was activated with phosphoric acid and then activated carbon was obtained by carbonization. It is aimed to evaluate the performance of the prepared activated carbon sample by performing methylene blue adsorption studies. For this, our waste raw material was first pyrolyzed at 400 °C and 500 °C. These samples were activated with H3PO4 at 2:1, 3:1 and 4:1 ratios by weight, and each sample was carbonized at 400, 600 and 800 °C. As a result of the methylene blue adsorption experiments applied to these results, the best methylene blue removal percentage; The sample, which was activated with H3PO4 at a ratio of 3:1 by weight and carbonized at 800 °C, gave pyrolysis at 400 °C. Then, the effects of parameters such as initial methylene blue concentration, temperature, pH, initial adsorbent amount of this sample on the adsorption efficiency were investigated. Adsorption isotherms are adapted to understand which of the adsorption isotherms the sample is compatible with. The sample was found to be suitable for the Langmuir isotherm. Finally, SEM-EDS, BET, XRD and FT-IR analyzes were performed to determine the characteristic features of the sample.