Synthesis of Pineapple Peel Based Activated Carbon Via Microwave Irradiation Technique for Methylene Blue Dye Removal

Dye effluents generated from industries were escaping from inefficient wastewater treatment systems and entering the water bodies, thus causing environmental and ecological problems due to their highly toxic properties. In this study, the pineapple peel-based activated carbon (PPAC) was prepared via physical activation through carbon dioxide (CO2) gasification and heated using a microwave oven (440 W activation power for 5 min) to treat methylene blue (MB) dye from synthetic solution. PPAC was disclosed to pose 544.07 m2/g for BET surface area, 285.32 m2/g for mesopores surface area and 0.3035 cm3/g for total pore volume. The average pore diameter for PPAC was revealed to be 2.23 nm. The MB adsorption uptakes by PPAC increased from 19.53 to 75.18 mg/g whereas MB removal dropped from 78.13 to 25.06%, when MB starting concentration was elevated from 25 to 300 mg/L. The MB adsorption equilibrium toward PPAC was excellently fitted by the Langmuir isotherm model with optimum single layer adsorption capacity, Qm of 84.76 mg/g. Meanwhile, the kinetic studies of MB adsorption onto PPAC were best represented by pseudo-second order (PSO) kinetic models.