Iranian Association of Chemical Engineering (IAChE) Iranian Journal of Chemical Engineering (IJChE) 1735-5397 18 3 2021 09 01 Removal of Phosphate from the Aqueous Environment Using Iron Oxide/Activated Carbon Composites: Activated Carbon Derived from Ziziphus Nuts as a New Precursor 52 62 144893 10.22034/ijche.2022.315429.1415 EN Behnam Mousazadeh Gas Engineering Department, Petroleum University of Technology, Ahvaz, Iran Nima . Mohammadi Gas Engineering Department, Petroleum University of Technology, Ahvaz, Iran Touba Hamoule Basic ScienceDepartment, Petroleum University of Technology, Ahvaz, Iran, Journal Article 2021 11 17 Ziziphus nuts are abundant in Khuzestan province, Iran, and are considered as an unwanted natural biomass waste. The present study is aimed to develop low-cost activated carbon from Ziziphus nuts as a new precursor for the removal of phosphate from the water environment.the iron oxide modification was performed to simultaneously facilitate the adsorbent separation via a simple magnetic process and increase the phosphate removal capacity. The iron oxide/activated carbon composite (IOAC) was characterized using XRD, EDX, SEM, and BET methods. The specific surface area for IOAC reached 569.41 m2/g, comparable to that of the commercial activated carbon. While other similar derived-from-biomasses activated carbon reached the phosphate removal capacity of around 15 mg/g, IOAC demonstrated the excellent phosphate removal performance of as high as 27 mg/g. Also, IOAC showed fast adsorption kinetics, achieving equilibrium in only 60 minutes. According to the results, the pseudo-second-order kinetic model was more consistent with the data related to the phosphate adsorption onto the adsorbent than the pseudo-first-order model. The adsorption results using Langmuir, Freundlich, and Webber-Morris diffusion models were interpreting. The maximum Langmuir adsorption capacity was calculated to be 27 mg/L. The adsorbent was removed from the aqueous solution via a simple magnetic process.

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