Application of an industrial agricultural waste-based activated carbon in the treatment of water contaminated with Reactive Blue 19 dye: optimization, kinetic, equilibrium and recyclability analyses.

This study is concerned with the examination of the sorptive ability of a new carbonaceous (CPC) sorbent prepared under optimized conditions with H₃PO₄ activation from the citrus industrial processing pulp (CP) in removing Reactive Blue 19 dye (RB19) from an aqueous solution. Optimum removal conditions were determined based on the maximum effects of some variable process parameters. The kinetic data showed agreement with the pseudo-second-order model. The isotherm data fit the Langmuir isotherm model best, and the maximum amount of sorbed RB19 was determined as 437.89 mg/g. The calculated thermodynamic parameters showed that the process is spontaneous and endothermic in nature. Desorption studies were performed with various desorbents for the recovery of RB19 and/or recyclability of CPC. The results show that CPC is a highly effective and reusable sorbent for cleaning water containing RB19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]