Effect of Sonication in the Preparation of Activated Carbon Particles on Adsorption Performance

The impact of acid and base adsorption capacities of activated carbon (AC) particles with activation condition, contact time, specific surface area (SSA), particle size, concentration, and temperature was studied. AC was pre-treated by sonication to improve the surface characteristics and enhance its adsorption capacity. Sonication increased the SSA of AC. SEM imaging showed good dispersion and uniform AC particles with an average diameter of about 0.6 mu m. The adsorption results demonstrated that AC surfaces possessed effective interactions with acids and bases, and the greatest adsorption capacity was achieved with CH3COOH, where data were analyzed by Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms. It was found that the isotherm data correlated well with the Freundlich isotherm. Adsorption of raw AC particles increased under sonication conditions. The adsorption process with sonicated and unsonicated AC particles obeyed pseudo first-order kinetics.