Activated Carbon from Agricultural Waste for the Removal of Pollutants from Aqueous Solution

With increasingly strict environmental protection legislation, industrial development leads to a high need for low-cost and high-performance adsorbents. Due to their availability and eco-friendly character as well as their high porosity, activated carbons are exploited in diversified applications such as adsorption of pollutants in the liquid or gas phase, as well as in catalysis, and energy or gas storage. Activated carbon designates carbon materials with a high porosity and surface area, which has numerous uses in environmental and industrial applications for the removal, recovery, isolation, and processing of several gaseous and liquid phase compounds. Hence, biomass lignocellulosic material derived from agricultural by-products has shown its potential as a valuable raw material for the production of activated carbon, mainly for its low-price availability. Many investigations on lignocellulosic materials as an efficient precursor for activated carbon preparation have been published by different researchers. This chapter illustrates an outline of the different methods of preparation of activated carbon and their available forms and their surface functions and their application in wastewater treatment.