Synthesis and characterization of carbon nanospheres for adsorption of ibuprofen from aqueous solution: Optimization by Box–Behnken design

Adsorption is an incredibly productive and efficient way of treating wastewater to eradicate pollutants. Carbon nanospheres (CNS) have drawn a lot of attention in the adsorption industry because of their many active sites and high surface-to-volume ratio. This study focused on using CNS to remove ibuprofen (IBP) from aqueous solutions. The synthesized CNS was examined by BET, FESEM, Raman spectroscopy, FTIR, and XRD analyses, and the effects of pH, temperature, adsorption time, initial IBP concentration and amount of adsorbent were further evaluated with a central composite design-based response surface (RSM) methodology. Results showed a high rate of adsorption efficiency (356.899 mg/g). It was also confirmed that chemical adsorption was responsible for binding IBP to CNS. From Langmuir model fitting as well as pseudo-second-order kinetic models, it was established that reaction was both endothermic and exothermic. Lastly, all possible mechanisms of interaction were identified.