Carbonaceous adsorbent prepared from waste tires: Experimental and computational evaluations of organic dye methyl orange

This work reports the recycling of waste rubber tires (WRT) to produce a carbonaceous material as adsorbent of an environmental value. The produced material was activated by thermal-chemical process. The WRT-derived carbonaceous adsorbent (CA) was characterized by means of scanning electron microscope, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and infrared and Raman spectroscopic techniques. The developed CA was tested and evaluated as potential adsorbent for methyl orange (MO) removal. A series of MO stock solutions whose concentrations range from 1 x 10(-6) to 1 x 10(-4) M was prepared to investigate the possible activity of CA. Experimental parameters such as dosage amount, initial concentration and temperature were optimized. A rapid and fast equilibrium has been observed. The maximum adsorption took place in the pH range of 3-5. The temperature-effect study revealed that the process is exothermic. A possible adsorption mechanism has been suggested on the view of calculated frontier molecular orbitals of the methyl orange molecule. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.