Adsorption of rhodamine B with activated carbon prepared from beech wood

Dyes release into waste water due to its toxicity for some organisms results in major environmental pollution problems. The activated carbon (AC) is an efficient adsorbent to remove this kind of pollutants from aqueous phase. Hence, in this research activated carbon was prepared from sound and rotted beech wood by chemical activation method and its adsorption capacity for removal of Rhodamine B was assessed. The carbonization and activation steps were performed at single stage with impregnating the substrate by zinc chloride as activating agent and with the ratio of 75, 100 and 125 percent to raw material mass at 400 and 500 ºC. The results showed that with increasing the impregnating agent content, the iodine number of ACs from both woods enhanced. The yield of AC from sound wood decreased with increasing impregnating agent while it was not predictable for AC resulted from rotted wood. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) studies revealed much morphological changes in the surface of rotted wood-AC in comparison with sound wood -AC after treatment with activating agent. Also, raising the activating temperature from 400 to 500 ºC caused to enhance the iodine number. All prepared ACs performed much efficient in removal of Rhodamine B from aqueous solution. The maximum adsorption of the dye was obtained for ACs prepared under impregnating ratio of 125 and activating temperature of 500 ºC