Preparation and characterization of nanocarbonaceous materials : Study of the adsorption properties in removal of heavy metals from polluted water / Reham Mahmoud Saleh Awad ; Supervised Nady A. Fathy , Mahmoud S. Rizk

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Science - Department of Analytical Chemistry

The present investigation aims at preparation of nanostructured carbon xerogels by sol-gel polymerization of tannic acid (TA) as a natural carbon precursor with low amount of resorcinol in presence of formaldehyde and basic catalysts followed by conventional drying and then carbonization. Surface, textural and adsorption properties of the resultant carbon materials were studied as a function of carbonization factors (viz. temperature and time). For surface characteristics; various techniques such as elemental analysis (C,H,N, O), slurry pH of carbon sample, acidity and basicity, scanning and transmission electron microscopes, and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy as well as thermal properties by thermogravimetry were performed for some selected samples. Nitrogen gas adsorption was applied to determine the porous characteristics with respect to effect of temperature and time through carbonization process. To evaluate the adsorption performance of the resultant carbon materials, equilibrium and kinetic studies for removal of lead ions from aqueous solutions as probe of toxic heavy metals, as well as removal of cadmium ions for a comparison. Interesting adsorption results were obtained in which high adsorption capacity for lead (II) ions attained ~250 mgg-1 with compared to other carbon adsorbents in literature. The outcome of this study proved that tannic acid is effectively carbon precursor and could be polymerized with resorcinol-formaldehyde for preparing low-cost carbon xerogels with promising adsorption properties for removing heavy metals

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