Bioresource Technology 101 (2010) 1675–1680

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Bioresource Technology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biortech

Removal of nitrate from aqueous solutions by activated carbon prepared

from sugar beet bagasse
Hakan Demiral *, Gül Gündüzoğlu
Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Eskisßehir Osmangazi University, Mesßelik Campus, 26480 Eskisßehir, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study, activated carbons were prepared from sugar beet bagasse by chemical activation and the
Received 21 August 2009 prepared activated carbons were used to remove nitrate from aqueous solutions. In chemical activation,
Received in revised form 26 September ZnCl2 was used as chemical agent. The effects of impregnation ratio and activation temperature were
2009
investigated. The produced activated carbons were characterized by measuring their porosities and pore
Accepted 30 September 2009
size distributions. The microstructure of the activated carbons was examined by scanning electron
Available online 24 October 2009
microscopy (SEM). The maximum specific surface area of the activated carbon was about 1826 m2/g at
700 °C and at an impregnation ratio of 3:1. The resulting activated carbon was used for removal of nitrate
Keywords:
Sugar beet bagasse
from aqueous solution. The effects of pH, temperature and contact time were investigated. Isotherm stud-
Activated carbon ies were carried out and the data were analyzed by Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin equations. Three
Adsorption simplified kinetic models were tested to investigate the adsorption mechanism.
Nitrate Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Chemical activation

1. Introduction as a starting material for preparing activated carbon (Basßar, 2006).

Several nitrogen compounds including ammonia, nitrites and
nitrates have been frequently present in drinking water and vari-
ous types of agricultural, domestic and industrial wastewater
(Öztürk and Bektasß, 2004). Especially nitrates can cause severe
problems, including eutrophication and infection diseases, such
as cyanosis and cancer of the alimentary canal (Wang et al., 2007).
Traditional methods for removal of nitrates from water include
two main groups of treatment processes: biological and physico-
chemical. Biological denitrification is an eco-friendly and cost-
effective method by which facultative anaerobic denitrifying bac-
teria reduce nitrate or nitrite into harmless nitrogen gas in the ab-
sence of oxygen. The biological denitrification process is slow,
particularly for industrial wastewater containing high concentra-
tions of nitrate and for low temperatures. The most conventional
physico-chemical processes for nitrate removal are ion exchange,
reverse osmosis, electrodialysis and adsorption (Chatterjee and
Woo, 2009).
Activated carbon produced from environmental waste with
high carbon content is the most important material to clean envi-
ronmental pollution (gases and liquid impurities). Environmental
wastes are very important starting materials for preparing acti-
vated carbon. Various polymeric wastes, based on petroleum, agri-
culture by-product (ligno-cellulosic) and coals are commonly used
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 222 2393750/3662; fax: +90 222 2393613.
E-mail address: hdemiral@ogu.edu.tr (H. Demiral).
In recent years, there has been considerable research concerning
the preparation of low-cost activated carbon from agricultural
wastes such as coconut shell, corn cob, hazelnut bagasse, palm
shell, rice husk, cherry stone and apricot stones (Azevedo et al.,
2007; Chang et al., 2000; Demiral et al., 2008a; Daud and Ali,
2004; Karim et al., 2006; Marin et al., 2006a; Youssef et al., 2005).
Sugar beet production and sugar industry have a very signifi-
cant role in Turkey’s agriculture industry. In Turkey, 13,000,000
tonnes of sugar beet were produced in 2007 (Turkish Statistical
Institute, http://www.turkstat.gov.tr). Sugar beet bagasse is the
by-product of sugar production and large quantities of bagasse
are obtained after sugar production.
In this study, activated carbons were produced from sugar beet
bagasse by chemical activation. The effects of impregnation ratio
and activation temperature on activated carbon production were
investigated. The produced activated carbons were used to remove
nitrate from aqueous solutions by adsorption.
2. Methods
2.1. Activated carbon preparation
The sugar beet bagasse was supplied from Eskisßehir sugar plant.
Proximate analysis of sugar beet bagasse (wt.%, dry basis) gave
9.84% moisture, 74.45% volatile matter and 3.68% ash. Elemental
analysis (wt.%) gave 42.67% C, 6.08% H, 1.95% N and 49.29% O.
The dried samples (at 105 °C) were milled and then screened.

0960-8524/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2009.09.087
1676 H. Demiral, G. Gündüzoğlu / Bioresource Technology 101 (2010) 1675–1680

Fraction with particle diameters in the range of 0.60–0.80 mm was
selected for the experiments.
Chemical activation of sugar beet bagasse was carried out using
ZnCl2. In the first step of activation, 10–30 g of ZnCl2 were dis-
solved in 300 ml of distilled water, and then 10 g of dried bagasse
was mixed with the zinc chloride solution and stirred at approxi-
mately 80 °C for 6 h. The impregnation ratio was calculated as
the ratio of the weight of ZnCl2 in solution to the weight of the used
bagasse. The impregnation ratio was varied between 1 and 3. In the
second step, ZnCl2 impregnated bagasse was placed in a stainless
steel boat and carbonized in a vertical furnace at desired tempera-
tures (500, 600 and 700 °C) under the nitrogen flow of 100 ml/min.
The carbonization process was initiated by heating the sample at
the heating rate of 5 °C/min starting from ambient temperature
to the final temperature. Samples were held at the final tempera-
ture for 90 min. The resultant activated carbons were washed with
0.5 N HCl solution. Activated carbons were washed sequentially
several times by hot distilled water until the solution pH reached 6.
2.2. Characterization of activated carbons
Characterization of activated carbons was carried out by nitro-
gen adsorption–desorption isotherms measured at 77 K using
Quantachrome, Autosorb 1C. Prior to gas adsorption measurement,
the carbon was degassed at 300 °C under vacuum for 3 h. The BET
surface area was calculated from N2 adsorption isotherms by using
the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) equation (Stavropoulos and
Zabaniotou, 2005). The t-plot method was applied to calculate
the micropore volume and external surface (Önal et al., 2007).
The total pore volumes were estimated at a relative pressure of
0.995. Mesopore volume was determined by subtracting the
micropore volume from total pore volume. The pore size distribu-
tions of the activated carbons were determined by DFT (Density
Functional Theory) method (Sudaryanto et al., 2006). Scanning
electron microscopy (SEM) technique was employed to observe
the surface physical morphology of the activated carbons.
2.3. Adsorption studies
Adsorption of nitrate ions onto the produced activated carbon
was studied by batch experiments. A stock NaNO3 solution
(300 mg/l) was used in adsorption experiments. The concentration
of NO3 was determined by UV spectrophotometer (Thermo Elec-
tron Corporation, Aquamate) at 340 nm.
2.3.1. pH studies
In order to investigate the effect of pH on nitrate adsorption, the
pH of the NaNO3 solutions (100 mg/l) were adjusted to different
values between 3 and 10. The initial pH of the solution was ad-
justed by using 0.1 N HCl or 0.1 N NaOH. Dried activated carbon
(0.1 g) was added to 50 ml solution. After adsorption, the pH value
providing the maximum nitrate removal was determined.
tween 10 mg/l and 200 mg/l. After adsorption, the concentrations
of nitrate remaining unadsorbed were determined.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Characterization of the activated carbons
3.1.1. N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms
Nitrogen adsorption is a standard procedure for the determina-
tion of the porosity of carbonaceous adsorbents. The adsorption
isotherm is the information source about the porous structure of
the adsorbent, heat of adsorption, characteristics of physics and
chemistry and so on (Önal et al., 2007). The N2 adsorption–desorp-
tion isotherms of the activated carbons obtained at different tem-
peratures and impregnation ratios are shown in Fig. 1.
Identification of the activated carbons (SBC1, SBC2, SBC3, SBC4
and SBC5) according to the impregnation ratio and activation tem-
perature was given in Table 1. The shapes of the isotherms are the
same in all temperatures and impregnation ratios. From the shapes
of the isotherms, it may be stated that all activated carbons exhibit
steep type I isotherms with an almost horizontal plateau at higher
pressures, indicating highly microporous materials. The adsorption
and desorption branches were parallel over a wide range at higher
pressure, indicating the highly narrow pore size distribution
microporous materials (Qian et al., 2007).
3.1.2. Surface area and pore volume
The adsorptive capacity of activated carbon is related to its spe-
cific surface area and pore volume. Surface area and pore volume
are developed during the activation processes. The surface proper-
ties of the activated carbons prepared from sugar beet bagasse at
different temperatures and impregnation ratios are given in Table
1.
Activation temperature and impregnation ratio are the most
important parameters for activated carbon production. The effect
of carbonization temperature in the pore development is very sig-
nificant as seen in Table 1. The BET surface area (SBET) increased
from 1191 to 1826 m2/g with the increase in activation tempera-
ture from 500 to 700 °C at impregnation ratio of 3. The carbons
with the highest surface area were obtained at 700 °C for all
impregnation ratios. It was observed that the yield of carbon de-
creased from 65.1% to 25.12% as the activation temperature in-
creased from 500 to 700 °C at impregnation ratio of 3. Increasing
the carbonization temperature increases the evolution of volatile
matters from the precursor, leading to increase in the pore devel-
opment, and creates new pores. Depending on raw material and

2.3.2. Kinetic studies

The rate of adsorption of nitrate was studied at different time
intervals. In kinetic studies, 50 ml NaNO3 solution (100 mg/l) and
0.1 g activated carbon were agitated. The mixture was shaken at
140 rpm using a temperature-controlled water bath (Memmert).
Batch experiments were repeated for different periods until reach-
ing the adsorption equilibrium.

2.3.3. Equilibrium adsorption studies

The adsorption of nitrate from aqueous solutions by activated
carbon was carried out at different temperatures (25, 35 and
45 °C). In the experiments, 0.1 g activated carbon samples were
mixed with 50 ml solutions of various nitrate concentrations be- Fig. 1. N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms of the prepared activated carbons.
 H. Demiral, G. Gündüzoğlu / Bioresource Technology 101 (2010) 1675–1680 1677

Table 1
Surface properties of the activated carbons.

AC samples Impregnation ratio Activation temperature SBET SMicro VMicro VMeso VTotal Dp
(°C) (m2/g) (m2/g) (cm3/g) (cm3/g) (cm3/g) (nm)
SBC1 3 500 1191 1119 0.567 0.099 0.666 2.25
SBC2 3 600 1442 1357 0.608 0.208 0.816 2.18
SBC3 3 700 1826 1594 0.711 0.255 0.966 2.22
SBC4 2 700 1747 1616 0.760 0.171 0.931 2.13
SBC5 1 700 1389 1247 0.498 0.152 0.65 1.87

activation method, maximum surface areas were obtained be-
tween 400 and 800 °C in ZnCl2 activation in the literature (Kalderis
et al., 2008; Marin et al., 2006b; Tay et al., 2001; Yang and Lua,
2006; Zhu et al., 2007).
Another parameter, affected the pore properties, is impregna-
tion ratio. The ZnCl2 assumes a dehydration agent role during acti-
vation. It inhibits the formation of tars and any other liquids that
can clog up the pores of the sample. With ZnCl2 impregnation,
the movement of the volatiles through the pore passages will not
be hindered and volatiles will be subsequently released from the
carbon surface during activation.
The surface areas and the pore volumes of the activated carbons
prepared at 700 °C carbonization temperature using various
impregnation ratios are shown in Table 1. The BET surface area
and total pore volume increase with increasing ratio of ZnCl2 to ba-
gasse from 1 to 3 and reach a maximum of 1826 m2/g and
0.966 cm3/g, respectively. Increasing the amounts of ZnCl2 en-
hances the suppression of tar formation and promotes the release
of volatiles, and therefore surface area and total pore volume in-
creased. However, micropore volume and micropore surface area
increase with increasing impregnation ratio up to 2. But there is
a pronounced decrease in micropore volume and micropore sur-
face area when the impregnation ratio is 3. These results suggested
that as the impregnation ratio is higher than 2, the strong inhibi-
tion of tar formation by the ZnCl2 promotes substantial release of
volatiles from the carbon structure. This contributes to the sub-
stantial increase in the widening of the pores. Many micropores
were enlarged to mesopores. As a result, micropore volume and
surface area decreased. This mechanism of pore widening was also
reported by other researchers (Hua et al., 2001; Lua and Yang,
2005).
that the carbons are mainly microporous. The pore size distribu-
tion is dependent on the activation temperature and impregnation
ratio. As the temperature increases from 500 to 700 °C (impregna-
tion ratio 3/1), the micropore volume decreases from 85.15% to
73.60%.
It was suggested that the activating agent ZnCl2 not only cre-
ated new pores but also widened existing pores, so that a signifi-
cant amount of micropores became mesopores. The average pore
diameter increased from 1.87 to 2.22 nm with the ratio increasing
from 1 to 3 (Table 1). Similar results were obtained by Hua et al.
(2001).
3.1.4. Surface morphology
Surface morphology of the sugar beet bagasse and the activated
carbon were investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM).
The surface of the sugar beet bagasse is smooth. Bagasse is irregu-
lar in nature and the absence of porosity is evident. Activation pro-
cess was able to create pore structure within the carbon. There is a
good and successful pore development in the activated carbon (ob-
tained at 700 °C with impregnation ratio of 3.0). The activated car-
bon obtained at 700 °C had a highly porous surface, indicating
higher surface area. The external surface of the carbon is full of cav-
ities. The cavities on the surface of the carbon resulted from the
evaporation of ZnCl2 during carbonization, leaving the space previ-
ously occupied by the reagent.
3.2. Adsorption studies
The activated carbon with a highest surface area (SBC3) was
used in adsorption studies.

3.2.1. Effect of initial pH

3.1.3. Pore size distribution
Fig. 2 shows pore size distributions of some activated carbon
samples. The pore size distribution of the activated carbons are be-
low 60 Å with most of the pores less than 20 Å, which indicates
With pH of the solution varying from 3.0 to 10.15, the adsorp-
tion of the nitrate changed between 41.2% and 34.68%. Maximum
removal (41.2%) was obtained at pH 3. The reason for good removal
of nitrate at the lower pH is that the negative charge on the surface
is reduced due to the excess of protons in solutions. As a result, the
pH of the system decreases and the number of positively charged
sites increase. A positively charged surface site on the activated
carbon favors the adsorption of the nitrate anions due to electro-
static attraction. Similar results were obtained by other researchers
(Chatterjee and Woo, 2009; Öztürk and Bektasß, 2004). Because the
solution pH does not have much significant effect on the nitrate re-
moval, the following studies were carried out at the original solu-
tion pH (6.58).

3.2.2. Adsorption kinetics

Fig. 2. Pore size distribution of the activated carbon samples.
In order to study the controlling mechanisms of the adsorption
process, pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic mod-
els and an intra-particle diffusion model were used to test the
experimental data.
A simple kinetic analysis of adsorption is the Lagergren’s pseu-
do-first-order differential equation (Amin, 2008; Bhattacharyya
and Sharma, 2005)
1678 H. Demiral, G. Gündüzoğlu / Bioresource Technology 101 (2010) 1675–1680

k1 t sults for second-order kinetic model. Therefore the adsorption ki-

log ðqe  qt Þ ¼ log qe 
2:303
where qe and qt are the amounts of nitrate adsorbed (mg/g) at equi-
librium and at time t (min), respectively, and k1 (l/min) is the rate
constant of first-order adsorption.
The pseudo-second-order model can be expressed in the form
(Bhattacharyya and Sharma, 2005; Amin, 2008)
t 1 t does not pass through the origin, this is indicative of some degree
¼ þ
qt k2 q2e qe
where k2 is the pseudo-second-order rate constant (g/mg min), qe
and qt are the amounts of nitrate adsorbed (mg/g) at equilibrium
and at time t (min), respectively.
Adsorption is a multi-step process involving transport of the
solute molecules from the aqueous phase to the surface of the solid
particles followed by diffusion into the interior of the pores. The in-
tra-particle diffusion rate equation is expressed by the following
equation (Acharya et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2005)
ð1Þ
netic could well be approximated more favorably by second-
order kinetic model for nitrate. Similar results were also reported
by other workers (Öztürk and Bektasß, 2004; Wang et al., 2007).
According to the intra-particle diffusion model, a plot of qt ver-
sus t1/2 should be linear if intra-particle diffusion is involved in the
adsorption process, and if this line passes through the origin then
intra-particle diffusion is the rate controlling step. When the plot
ð2Þ of boundary layer control and this further show that the intra-par-
ticle diffusion is not the only rate limiting step, but also other ki-
netic models may control the rate of adsorption, all of which
may be operating simultaneously (Arami et al., 2008). As can be
seen from Fig. 3b, the linear plot did not pass through the origin.
The plot has an initial curved portion, followed by an intermediate
linear portion. The first sharper portion is the external surface
adsorption or instantaneous adsorption stage. The second portion
is the gradual adsorption stage, where the intra-particle diffusion
is rate controlled.

qt ¼ kp t 1=2
where kp is the intra-particle rate constant (g mg1 min0.5).
The fit of these models was checked by each linear plot of log
(qe  qt) versus t (Fig. 3a), (t/qt) versus t (Fig. 3a) and qt versus t1/
2
(Fig. 3b), respectively and by comparing to the regression coeffi-
cients for each expression. The rate constants, calculated equilib-
rium uptakes and the corresponding correlation coefficients were
given in Table 2.
The correlation coefficient is closer to unity (0.9971) and the
calculated qe value is in good agreement with the experimental re-
ð3Þ
3.2.3. Adsorption isotherms
The adsorption isotherm indicates how the molecules subjected
to adsorption distribute between the liquid phase and the solid
phase when the adsorption process reaches an equilibrium state.
The analysis of the isotherm data by fitting them to different iso-
therm models is an important step to find the suitable model that
can be used for design purposes (Tan et al., 2008). Adsorption iso-
therm study was carried out on three isotherm models such as
Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin.
In the Langmuir theory, the basic assumption is that the sorp-
tion takes place at specific homogeneous sites within the adsor-
bent. This equation can be written as follows (Demiral et al.,
2008b; Kavitha and Namasivayam, 2007)

Ce 1 Ce
¼ þ ð4Þ
qe bQ o Q o

where qe is the amount of nitrate adsorbed on activated carbon

(mg/g), Ce is the equilibrium concentration (mg/l), b is the adsorp-
tion equilibrium constant (l/mg) and Qo is the maximum adsorption
capacity. A plot of Ce/qe versus Ce (Fig. 4a) gives the adsorption
coefficients.
A further analysis of the Langmuir equation can be made on the
basis of a dimensionless equilibrium parameter (RL) (Demiral et al.,
2008b; Kavitha and Namasivayam, 2007). If the average of the RL
values for each of the different initial concentrations used is be-
tween 0 and 1, the favorable adsorption is provided. The adsorp-
tion coefficients and the correlation coefficients were given in
Table 3. The Langmuir plots have good linearity. The correlation
coefficients are 0.984, 0.974 and 0.995 for 25, 35 and 45 °C, respec-
tively. The maximum adsorption capacity increased from 9.14 to
27.55 mg/g as the temperature increased from 25 to 45 °C. The val-
ues of RL for adsorption of nitrate onto activated carbon changed
between 0.014 and 0.258. These values indicated that the adsorp-
tion behaviour of activated carbon was favorable for the nitrate.
Fig. 3. Linear kinetic plots for nitrate adsorption (a) pseudo-first-order and pseudo-
The Freundlich isotherm is derived by assuming a heteroge-
second-order model and (b) intra-particle diffusion model.
neous surface with a non-uniform distribution of heat of adsorp-

Table 2
Kinetic parameters for adsorption rate expressions.

qe (exp) First-order kinetic model Second-order kinetic model Intra-particle diffusion model
mg/g
2 2
k1 qe (cal) R k2 qe (cal) R kp R2
(l/min) (mg/g) (g/mg min) (mg/g) (mg/g min1/2)
13.49 0.0944 10.12 0.9878 0.0011 15.75 0.9971 0.6191 0.9098
 H. Demiral, G. Gündüzoğlu / Bioresource Technology 101 (2010) 1675–1680 1679

nature of adsorption (Hameed and Daud, 2008). The values of n (Ta-

ble 3) suggest that nitrate is favorably adsorbed by activated carbon
prepared from sugar beet bagasse.
The Temkin equation suggests a linear decrease of sorption en-
ergy as the degree of completion of the sorptional centres of an
adsorbent is increased. The heat of adsorption of all the molecules
in the layer would decrease linearly with coverage due to adsor-
bent–adsorbate interactions. The adsorption is characterized by a
uniform distribution of binding energies, up to some maximum
binding energy. The Temkin isotherm can be expressed in the fol-
lowing linear form (Demiral et al., 2008a,b; Hameed and Daud,
2008)

qe ¼ B ln A þ B ln C e ð6Þ

where B = RT/b, A is the equilibrium binding constant (l/mg), B is re-

lated to the heat of adsorption. A plot of qe versus ln Ce (Fig. 4c) en-
ables the determination of the isotherm constants. The Temkin
isotherm constants were given in Table 3.
From Table 3, the R2 values for the Langmuir isotherm are sig-
nificantly higher than those of the other isotherms. Therefore,
Langmuir isotherm was found to fit the equilibrium data for nitrate
adsorption. Similar results were also reported for the nitrate
adsorption (Bhatnagar et al., 2008; Chatterjee and Woo, 2009).
The adsorption capacity of the activated carbon increases with
the increase in temperature. This suggests that the adsorption pro-
cess is endothermic in nature when temperature increased from 25
to 45 °C. The enhancement in the adsorption capacity might be due
to the possibility of increase in the number of active sites for the
adsorption with the increase of temperature. This may also be a re-
sult of an increase in the mobility of the nitrate molecule with the
rise of temperature.

Fig. 4. Linear adsorption isotherms for adsorption of nitrate at different temper- 3.2.4. Thermodynamic parameters
atures (a) Langmuir isotherms, (b) Freundlich isotherms and (c) Temkin isotherms. The thermodynamic constants; free energy change (DG°), en-
thalpy change (DH°) and entropy change (DS°) were calculated
to confirm the nature of the adsorption process. The equilibrium
tion over the surface. Freundlich equation is expressed by the fol-
constants (b) obtained from Langmuir model were used to deter-
lowing equation (Hameed and Daud, 2008):
mine the Gibbs free energy changes by the following equation
1 (Aydın and Baysal, 2006; Bhatnagar et al., 2008; Bulut and Aydın,
log qe ¼ log kf þ log C e ð5Þ 2006)
n
DS DH 
where kf and n are the Freundlich constants which represent ln b ¼  ð7Þ
adsorption capacity and adsorption intensity, respectively. The Fre-
R RT
undlich constants were determined from the slope and intercept of The enthalpy (DH°) and entropy (DS°) changes also can be esti-
a plot of log qe versus log Ce (Fig. 4b). The correlation coefficients of mated by the following equation:
the Freundlich plots are relatively lower according to Langmuir
plots. The value of n shows an indication of the favorability of DS DH 
ln b ¼  ð8Þ
adsorption. The value of n greater than unity shows the favorable R RT
The negative values of DG° (20.75, 24.18 and 31.15 kJ/mol)
indicate the spontaneous nature of the adsorption for nitrate at 25,
Table 3
Isotherm parameters for removal of nitrate.
35 and 45 °C. The positive value of DH° (133.62 kJ/mol) suggests
that the adsorption is endothermic. The positive value of DS°
Isotherms Temperature (K) Constants (0.516 kJ/mol K) indicates that there is an increase in the random-
Qo b RL R2 ness in the solid/solution interface during the adsorption process.
Langmuir 298 9.14 0.070 0.258 0.984
308 15.48 0.204 0.126 0.974
4. Conclusion
318 27.55 2.112 0.014 0.995
kf n R2
The prepared activated carbons have high pore volumes and a
Freundlich 298 1.45 2.49 0.936 large BET surface areas. It was found that the specific surface area
308 6.38 5.17 0.821
and total pore volume of the activated carbon were 1826 m2/g and
318 21.29 15.43 0.776
0.966 cm3/g. Produced activated carbon was used for the removal
B A R2
of nitrate from aqueous solutions. The initial pH value did not af-
Temkin 298 3.118 0.287 0.755 fect nitrate removal significantly. The kinetics studies indicated
308 2.244 9.431 0.876
that the pseudo-second-order equation provided the better corre-
318 4.691 11.251 0.797
lation of the adsorption data. The Langmuir model was found to
1680 H. Demiral, G. Gündüzoğlu / Bioresource Technology 101 (2010) 1675–1680
provide the best fit of the experimental data. The adsorption capac-
ity increased with the increase of temperature.
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