Removal of Zinc by Bitter Orange Peels Activated Carbon and Commercially Activated Carbon, a Comparison Study.

Abstract

 In this study, a comparison between using activated carbon prepared from bitter orange peels (BOAC) and a common commercially activated carbon (CAC), which is brought from the market, as adsorbent materials. This study was designed to find out which of these two activated carbons is more effective in the removal of zinc from waste water. This work examines the use of bitter orange peels, which are available as waste in local markets and in household garbage as an alternative presage to prepare an activated carbon by using (H₂SO₄) as activating reagent. The effects of pH, initial zinc concentrations, treatment time, adsorbent media bed height and the flow rate of simulated synthetic aqueous solution (SSAS) on the removal efficiency of zinc were all studied under 24oC

The results indicated that the removal efficiency of zinc increases with decreasing in pH of SSAS. When the initial concentration of zinc increases in SSAS, the removal efficiency of zinc was decreased. The study proved that the increasing of contact time leads to greater removal efficiency. When the height of adsorbent media in fixed column increases, the removal efficiency was increased. The experiments also showed that the removal efficiency of zinc from the SSAS increased, when the flow rate decreased. It could be concluded from this work that (BOAC) is better than (CAC) as an adsorbent materials in the removal of zinc; with a removal efficiency of (90%, 86%), respectively