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

The present study investigates the discharge of untreated or partially treated industrial and domestic wastewater which is usually an issue that affects the quality of water. The aim of the present study was to prepare cost effective activated carbons from agro-industrial wastes to be used for the decontamination of polluted wastewaters. In the first part of this study, corn wastes generated from starch and glucose production industry were used for the preparation of two activated carbons. The prepared activated carbons and a commercial activated carbon were evaluated for their capability of adsorbing pentachlorophenol from aqueous solution. Batch adsorption experiments were performed under different operating conditions including pH (2-8), adsorbent dosage (0.5{u2013}4.0 g/l), initial pentachlorophenol concentration (10{u2013}100mg/l), contact time (30{u2013}300 min) and temperature (25{u2013}45 {u00B0}C). The kinetics and equilibrium models describing the adsorption of pentachlorophenol by the prepared adsorbents were obtained. The adsorption of pentachlorophenol by corn wastes based adsorbents was found to follow the second order kinetics and the Freundlich equilibrium models. The intraparticle diffusion mechanism was successfully fitted to the obtained experimental data. Thermodynamic studies indicated that the adsorption process was exothermic. The adsorbents surface characterization revealed the presence of many functional groups capable of binding the adsorbate molecules.

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