Application of Ag Nanoparticle Loaded Bio-based Activated Carbon Composites for Sequestration of Naproxen from Water

摘要

In the present investigation we described a facile method to synthesize nano-silver supported activated carbon from renewable bio-resource and its eco-friendly promising role to purify pharmaceutical contaminated wastewaters. The adsorption characteristics of Naproxen (NAP) on Ag supported activated carbon (AAC) have been studied under varied environments. The developed adsorbent, AAC have been characterized by UV-Visible, FT-IR, SEM-EDXA, XRD, TEM and SAED. UV-Vis and TEM confirmed production of Ag NPs (average size of 15 ± 3 nm) on activated carbon surface. Further, XRD analysis authenticates the presence of pure face centered cubic (fcc) structure of silver nanoparticles formed on activated carbon surface. Various operational parameters, such as pH, adsorbent dose and contact time were optimized for the removal of NAP from water phase. The pseudo-second-order kinetic model was found to follow the adsorption phenomenon (with good correlation coefficient). The Langmuir isotherm well describes the experimental data and maximum monolayer adsorption capacity was 200 mg/g for AAC. The pH and optimal temperature for adsorption process are found to be 4.0 and 303 K, respectively. The rate of adsorption is remarkably fast at the beginning and achieves equilibrium in 120 min. The obtained results showed that AAC was a better substitute as composite materials for remediation of wastewater.