2012 Volume 10 Pages 374-378
We report herein on the fabrication of carbonaceous material produced from cotton treated with Tricresyl phosphate (TCP) for fireproofing and its evaluation for adsorbing Methylene blue (MB). We prepared two carbonaceous materials: cotton calcined at 900°C (CT900) and cotton calcined at 900°C with TCP (F-CT900). These materials were evaluated in terms of their scanning electron microscope images, specific surface area, pore volume, mean pore diameter, and solution pH. We found that the specific surface area of F-CT900 (1492 m2/g) is greater than that of CT900 (910 m2/g), and that the mean pore diameter of F-CT900 (2.41 Å) is smaller than that of CT900 (9.09 Å). The adsorption of MB onto CT900 and F-CT900 reached equilibrium within 5 h. We fitted the experimental data with the pseudo-second-order model and obtained correlation coefficients between 0.993 and 0.999. We found that more MB adsorbed onto F-CT900 (about 650 mg/g) than onto CT900 (about 350 mg/g). We also fitted these experimental data with both the Freundlich and Langmuir equations. Thus, carbonaceous material for MB removal could be produced from fireproofed cotton, and it is useful for the purification of dye solution systems. [DOI: 10.1380/ejssnt.2012.374]
