The synthesis of activated carbon from ground nut shells and its characteristics

Introduction

Dyes liberated from industries are a major problemfor water pollution. The presence of heavy metals,dyestuffs, and metalloids in an aqueous medium leadsto health and socioeconomic causes (Hazrat Ali et al.,2019) Toxic substances present in dye water enterinto the food chain of humans and several diseasesare caused. This became a worldwide concern,because of emerging various diseases. Toxicsubstances liberated from industries in the form ofheavy metals can damage the central nervous system,energy level, and vital organs. Long-term effects willlead to neurological and degenerative processes.Some toxic compounds in dye can damage humancells and leads to cancer (Jaishankar et al., 2014).Parkinson's disease, muscular dystrophy, etc is someof the major problems caused due to the intake ofwater containing heavy metals. Major illnesses anddeaths are occurring in Asia and Africa due to theintake of contaminated water. Around 50 milliondeaths occur globally. Getting purified water becamea major challenge nowadays. The conventionalmethods and regulations in drinking water should bemade strict to avoid the illness caused worldwide.Water treatment methods also should be madeadvanced to get healthy drinking water to avoiddiseases (Rahman et al., 2014).

For the past few years, developing a low-costadsorbent is a challenging task for researchers. Ecofriendly technologies are emerged to treat wastewaterat domestic and industrial levels (Rajasulochana etal., 2016). Development and demonstration ofmethods like Ion exchange, membrane filtration,Microbe assisted, and nanomaterials are madesuccessful. The high capital and operational cost oftreating water using these technologies become amajor threat (Muzammil Anjum et al., 2019). Toovercome these demerits a new technology wasintroduced, it was adsorption technology. Greenadsorbents were used in the adsorption technique toremove contaminants. These green adsorbents wereof high cost. This made the entire process costly. Toovercome this demerit activated carbon preparedfrom agricultural waste is utilized. It is a bioadsorbent also it can be recovered. Materials oradsorbates that possess high pore volume and surfacearea are best-suitable for wastewater treatment.When compared activated carbon possesses theseproperties (Kwikima et al., 2021). Activated carbonprepared from agricultural waste biomass is apreferable and cheapest adsorbent that can beemployed in wastewater treatment plants. This willreduce the capital investment and purification cost. Inthis study, the adsorbent is synthesized from Groundnut shell, which is a waste material from anagricultural source. Ground nut shell biomass isactivated by using Potassium hydroxide. Onactivation, the prepared activated biomass enhancesin surface area and its properties. Due to the changein the surface area of the adsorbent after theactivation process, the adsorption capability of theactivated biomass increased.