Acid Dyes Removal from textile wastewater using waste cotton activated carbon: Kinetic, isotherm, and thermodynamic studies

The present study aims at investigating the potential of activated carbon AC prepared from waste cotton fiber for the removal of Acid Dyes from aqueous solutions. The prepared activated carbon was characterized by pore structure analysis, Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy FTIR. Batch adsorption studies were carried out and the effect of experimental parameters such as pH, initial dye concentration and contact time on the adsorption was studied. The results revealed that the produced activated carbon has developed porous structure, fibrous shape, predominantly amorphous structure. The kinetic data obtained at different concentrations were investigated using the pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and intraparticle diffusion models. The experimental data were found to conform to the pseudo-second-order kinetics with good correlation. The obtained equilibrium data were best fitted to the Freundlich model. Finally, according to the thermodynamic parameters obtained, it was found that adsorption process was spontaneous and exothermic in nature.