Utilization of Pine Nut Shell derived carbon as an efficient alternate for the sequestration of phthalates from aqueous system

This study highlights the importance of a cheap bio waste; Pine Nut Shell (PNS), from which a carbon is synthesized that can efficiently remove toxic phthalates from an aqueous system. PNS derived carbon shows high affinity toward phthalates in descending order along with adsorption capacity i.e., dibutyl phthalate (DBP) 5.65 mg/g > diallyl phthalate (DAP) 3.64 mg/g > diethyl phthalate (DEP) and 2.87 mg/g > dimethyl phthalate (DMP) 2.48 mg/g. Different characterization techniques such as FTIR, elemental analysis, point of zero electric charge (PZC), SEM, EDX and BET were employed to investigate the binding sites and surface area of the adsorbent. Adsorption experiments were performed both in batch and column modes. Equilibrium studies showed that the Langmuir isotherm fits best to experimental data. Kinetically, adsorption phenomena obeyed pseudo second order. Furthermore, thermodynamic results expressed the exothermic nature of adsorption on the basis of negative value of enthalpy change. Column sorption method was also adapted to check the feasibility of the adsorption process through the investigation of flow rate, breakthrough curve and pre-concentration factor which is found to be 13 for DMP and DEP and 16 for DAP and DBP. Methanol was found to be best solvent for the recovery of phthalates. Application in real water samples also showed good efficiency of PNS derived carbon for the removal of phthalates. (C) 2013 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University.