Removal of Paracetamol from Aqueous Solution by Adsorption onto Activated Carbon Prepared from Rice Husk

Ndifor-Angwafor George Nche, A

Abstract

Removal of paracetamol from aqueous solution onto two activated carbons CANa1 and CANa2 obtained by the chemical activation of rice husk with sodium hydroxide was study in this work. The characterization of the activated carbons showed that the ph at zero charge was 6.80 for CANa1 and 6.54 for CANa2, while the pH of CANa1 was 7.10 and that of CANa2 was 7.13. from the adsorption of acetic acid, the specific surface areas were obtained as 178.13 m2/g for CANa1 and 104.82 m2/g for CANa2. The determination of the iodine number gave values 528.39 mg/g and 494.67 mg/g for CANa1 and CANa2 respectively. The kinetics of the adsorption was adequately described by the pseudo-second order and intraparticulate diffusion models. Concerning the equilibrium studies, the model of langmuir described best the adsorption on CANa1 while the model of freundlich described best the adsorption on CANa2. From the results obtained, CANa1 and CANa2 constitute effective adsorbents for the elimination of paracetamol from industrial waste water, the equilibrium is in according with the langmuir model, while the quantities adsorbed were 20.964 mg/g and 14.881 mg/g respectively.