Activated carbon (AC), a porous material with high pore volume, attracts increasing attention owing to its potential applications in several fields. The development of a porous structure in AC marginally relies on both the treatment methods and the type of precursor. Thus far, both renewable and nonrenewable precursor sources have been used to synthesize AC with high surface area and pore volume. This study presents the synthesis of AC via physicochemical treatment of waste oil fly ash (OFA), a waste material produced from power plants. The aim was to produce AC by adding surface pores and surface functional groups to the basal plane of OFA. Toward this objective, OFA was first chemically leached/activated with various combinations of H2SO4 and H3PO4, and then physically activated with CO2 at 900 °C. The chemical activation step, synergistically combined with CO2 activation, resulted in an increase of 24 times the specific surface area of the OFA. The maximum increase in surface area was obtained for the sample physicochemically treated with 100% H2SO4 . Moreover, the spectroscopic analysis confirmed the presence of acid functional groups after the chemical treatment step. To explore the surface heterogeneity, adsorptive potential distribution in terms of surface energy was also discussed as a function of the surface coverage. Following chemical activation, the OFA surface became heterogeneous. A major portion of the AC showed surface energy in the range of 40–50 erg/K, which was further increased as a result of physical activation at a higher temperature. Thus, the synergism created by physicochemical activation resulted in a material with high surface area and pore volume, and excellent adsorption characteristics. From the findings of this study, it was concluded that OFA is a cost-effective and environmentally benign precursor for the synthesis of AC.

In this study, chitosan was chemically modified with only diammonium phosphate (DAP) and DAP/EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) mixture for the removal of Pb(II) ions from aqueous solution. Modified chitosan forms were analyzed using thermo-gravimetric analyzer (TGA), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to investigate the thermal degradation behavior, structural modifications, and the surface texture of the cross-linked chitosan adsorbents, respectively. The adsorption results were analyzed by well-known kinetic and isotherm models. The kinetics of metal adsorption followed the pseudo-second-order model. The maximum sorption capacities obtained from the Langmuir isotherm model were 126 mg/g for diammonium phosphate-modified Chitosan (DMC) and 137 mg/g for DAP/EDTA-modified chitosan (EDMC). The thermodynamic analysis showed that the metal removal process was endothermic in nature.

Amine functionalized carbon (AFC) was synthesized from raw oil fly ash and later utilized it for simultaneous removal of methyl orange (MO) and rhodamine 6G (Rh6G) pollutant dyes from aqueous medium. AFC was analyzed through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to examine its morphology, porosity and structural characteristics, respectively. The effect of various process parameters like mixing time, pollutant concentration, adsorbent dose, initial solution pH, and temperature of the medium were investigated for dye removal process. The experimental findings showed that the percentage removal of Rh6G was higher than MO and both dyes showed synergism during the adsorption from binary dye solution. Pseudo-second-order model was most appropriate model for both dyes and thermodynamic parameters showed that the dyes removal process was endothermic in nature. Among various isotherm models, Hill and Toth isotherms best explain the adsorption of Rh6G and MO from binary dye solution.