Preparation and characterization of activated carbon from waste tea and application for degradation of dyes

The studies on characterization of different type of adsorbent such as activated carbon from waste tea has been performed. The characterization of the adsorbents includes estimation of various parameters such as proximate analysis moisture content, BET surface area, SEM, and FTIR. Surface area of adsorbents was found by BET surface area analyzer. The pore structure of activated carbon was observed through SEM analysis. The adsorbent that showed best surface properties was used for adsorption of methylene blue dye. Adsorption capacity of methylene blue from aqueous solution onto the activated carbon prepared from waste tea was investigated under various experimental conditions. Batch mode experiments were conducted to assess the potential of the above activated carbon for the removal of Methylene blue from aqueous solution. Kinetics studies have been done by varying the following three parameters: initial concentration of Methylene blue dye solution, adsorbent dose on the uptake of dye from the solution and effect of temperature .Adsorption kinetics studies indicated that the pseudo first - order model yielded the best fit for the kinetic data. These results indicate that waste tea could be utilized as a renewable resource to develop activated carbon which is a potential adsorbent for methylene blue.