Activated carbon from Nauclea diderrichii agricultural waste–a promising adsorbent for ibuprofen, methylene blue and CO2

Abstract The adsorption potential of activated carbon derived from Nauclea diderrichii biomass (NDAC) was scrupulously harnessed as a low cost and ubiquitous adsorbent for the removal of greenhouse gas (CO2), and organic pollutants such as methylene blue (MB) and ibuprofen (IB) from water. NDAC was fully characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), universal attenuated total reflectance-infra red (UATR-IR), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and nitrogen gas adsorption–desorption by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) technique. This study showed that NDAC comprises graphitic carbons that had some surface functional groups such as C C, C O, etc, which adsorbed these environmental contaminants. The adsorption equilibrium and kinetic data that the adsorption of these environmental contaminants formed multilayers (homogeneous surfaces) with the surface of NDAC. The adsorption mechanism of CO2, MB and IB onto NDAC occurred by via electrostatic attractions and π-π conjugal interactions. The adsorption capacity of NDAC for CO2 was ca. 3.2 cm3.g−1 at 298 K. The Langmuir maximum adsorption capacity, q max of NDAC for MB and IB was obtained as 35.09 mg.g−1 and 70.92 mg.g−1 at 328 K respectively.