Removal of methyl orange by using activated carbon from oil Palm Trunk (OPT)

Textile effluents are considered as potential sources for the water pollution as they contain toxic dyes. The release of azo dye in environment is harmful due to its toxicity, colour, carcinogenicity and mutagenicity of the dye and also it was hard to treat. In the present study, activated carbon derived from oil palm trunk (OPT) was used as an alternative low-cost adsorbent for the removal of methyl orange from the aqueous solution. The preparation process of activated carbon consisted of H3PO4 impregnation followed by carbonization process at 500°C for 3 h. The surface morphology and the elemental analysis of the activated carbon play a very important role in the adsorption properties of the activated carbon. The surface morphology of the activated carbon was characterized by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis. Surface functional groups were visualized via Fourier Transform Infrared-Attenuated Total Reflectance (FTIR-ATR) Spectrometer technique. The effects of operating conditions like adsorbent dosage, concentration of dye and contact time are studied for the adsorption of the methyl orange dye. The optimization adsorption process was carried out using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) via Box-Behnken design. The optimum conditions obtained were 400 mg/L of methyl orange, 1 h of contact time and 1 g of activated carbon with the highest percentage of methyl orange removal of 99.97%. Based on the study, activated carbon derived from oil palm trunk (OPT) showed good potential as an adsorbing agent.