The production characteristics of activated carbon from waste walnut shell have been investigated by taking activation temperature, activation time, amount of activating agent, and kind of activating agent as the major influential factors. The adsorpt...
The production characteristics of activated carbon from waste walnut shell have been investigated by taking activation temperature, activation time, amount of activating agent, and kind of activating agent as the major influential factors. The adsorption capacity of the activated carbon which was produced using phosphoric acid as the activating agent increased with activation temperature and showed its greatest value at about $550^{\circ}C$. Yield for activated carbon was observed to decrease continuously as the activation temperature was raised. The optimal activation time for the highest adsorption capacity was found to be about 2 hr, and as the activation time increased the yield for activated carbon was showed to decrease continuously. The increase in the amount of activating agent resulted in the increase of the yield for activated carbon, however, excessive amount of activating agent deteriorated its adsorption capacity reversely. The variations of the microstructure of activated carbon observed by SEM with several influential factors, correlated very well with its changes in the adsorbability with the same factors and the kind of activating agent was found to play an important role in the determination of the adsorption capacity of activated carbon. To investigate the adsorption characteristics of the produced activated carbon, the adsorption reactions of $Cu^{2+}$ ion were examined using the produced activated carbon as the adsorbent. In general, the kinetics of the adsorption of $Cu^{2+}$ ion was observed to follow a 2nd-order reaction and the rate constant for adsorption reaction increased as the initial concentration of adsorbate was diminished. The equilibrium adsorption of $Cu^{2+}$ was explained well with Freundlich model and its adsorption reaction was found to be endothermic. The activation energy for adsorption was calculated to be 13.07 kcal/mol, which implied that the adsorption reaction was very irreversible, and several thermodynamic parameters of adsorption reaction were estimated using van't. Hoff equation and thermodynamic relationships.