Pharmaceuticals have been widely remaining contaminants in wastewater, and diclofenac is the most common pharmaceutical pollutant. Therefore, the removal of diclofenac from aqueous solutions using activated carbon produced by pyrocarbonic acid and microwaves was investigated in this research. Apricot seed powder and pyrophosphoric acid (45 wt%) were selected as raw material and activator respectively, and microwave irradiation technique was used to prepare the activated carbon. The raw material was impregnated in pyrophosphoric acid at 80◦C with an impregnation ratio of 1: 3 (apricot seeds to phosphoric acid), the impregnation time was 4 h, whereas the power of the microwave was 700 watts with a radiation time of 20 min. A series of experiments were conducted at constant mixing speed (300 revolutions per minute) to evaluate the effect of experimental factors likes, adsorption time, pH of diclofenac solution, diclofenac initial concentration, and dosage of activated carbon on removal efficiency. The design of experiments (version 13 Stat-Ease) was implemented using the central composite method to define the optimum effect of the process factors on the removal efficiency. The analysis of variance showed that the quadratic model for the experiment was significant with a very low probability value (P- value < 0.0001). The adjusted R2 of the model was 0.9826 and the predicted R2 was 0.9574. Whereas the optimum conditions suggested by the model for the process variable were found to be 150 min, 3.25 pH, 30 mg/L, 0.267g, for adsorption time, pH of diclofenac solution, diclofenac initial concentration, a dosage of activated carbon, respectively and the maximum removal efficiency was found to be 94.6%. The data obtained from the experiments were fitted with Langmuir and Freundlich models and the results show that the data was well fitted Langmuir model with R2 = 0.9685 as compared to the Freundlich model which has R2 = 0.93249. Likewise, the data was analyzed by pseudo first and second-order kinetic models and the results show that the adsorption on apricot-activated carbon was well adequate with the pseudo-second-order model.
Absorption properties (Attenuation coefficient, the percentage of the reflection, and the percentage of absorption) in x-band have been investigated in this paper for novolac – alumina- graphite mixture. Using novolac as the host material, the samples are prepared with alumina concentrations (5%,10%,15%,20%) and graphite concentrations (5%,10%) with thickness equal to 2.2mm .Network analyzer produced by HP-8510 was used in this work to measure the attenuation coefficient. The samples (3, 5) have good attenuation of wave with bandwidth of frequencies. The maximum of attenuation is -25dB at frequency 10.28GHZ in sample (3) which has concentrations (80%novolac,10%alumina,and 5% graphite) and -24 dB at frequency 10.56GHZ in sample (5) whic
... Show MoreIn this research, the removal of cadmium (Cd) from simulated wastewater was investigated by using a fixed bed bio-electrochemical reactor. The effects of the main controlling factors on the performance of the removal process such as applied cell voltage, initial Cd concentration, pH of the catholyte, and the mesh number of the cathode were investigated. The results showed that the applied cell voltage had the main impact on the removal efficiency of cadmium where increasing the applied voltage led to higher removal efficiency. Meanwhile increasing the applied voltage was found to be given lower current efficiency and higher energy consumption. No significant effect of initial Cd concentration on the removal efficiency of cadmium b
... Show MoreIn this research, the removal of cadmium (Cd) from simulated wastewater was investigated by using a fixed bed bio-electrochemical reactor. The effects of the main controlling factors on the performance of the removal process such as applied cell voltage, initial Cd concentration, pH of the catholyte, and the mesh number of the cathode were investigated. The results showed that the applied cell voltage had the main impact on the removal efficiency of cadmium where increasing the applied voltage led to higher removal efficiency. Meanwhile increasing the applied voltage was found to be given lower current efficiency and higher energy consumption. No significant effect of initial Cd concentration on the removal efficie
... Show MoreAdsorption techniques are widely used to remove certain classes of pollutants from wastewater. Phenolic compounds represent one of the problematic groups. Na-Y zeolite has been synthesized from locally available Iraqi kaolin clay. Characterization of the prepared zeolite was made by XRD and surface area measurement using N2 adsorption. Both synthetic Na-Y zeolite and kaolin clay have been tested for adsorption of 4-Nitro-phenol in batch mode experiments. Maximum removal efficiencies of 90% and 80% were obtained using the prepared zeolite and kaolin clay, respectively. Kinetics and equilibrium adsorption isotherms were investigated. Investigations showed that both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms fit the experimental data quite well. On the
... Show MoreThis study concerns the removal of a trihydrate antibiotic (Amoxicillin) from synthetically contaminated water by adsorption on modified bentonite. The bentonite was modified using hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (HTAB), which turned it from a hydrophilic to a hydrophobic material. The effects of different parameters were studied in batch experiments. These parameters were contact time, solution pH, agitation speed, initial concentration (C0) of the contaminant, and adsorbent dosage. Maximum removal of amoxicillin (93 %) was achieved at contact time = 240 min, pH = 10, agitation speed = 200 rpm, initial concentration = 30 ppm, and adsorbent dosage = 3 g bentonite per 1L of pollutant solution. The characterization of the adsorbent, modi
... Show MoreA variety of oxides were examined as additives to a V2O5/Al2O3 catalyst in order to enhance the catalytic performance for the vapor phase oxidation of toluene to benzoic acid. It was found that the modification with MoO3 greatly promoted the little reaction leading to improve catalyst performance in terms of toluene conversion and benzoic acid selectivity. The effect of catalyst surface area, catalyst promoters, reaction temperature, O2/toluene, steam/toluene, space velocity, and catalyst composition to catalyst performance were examined in order to increase the benzoic acid selectivity and yield.
A nano manganese dioxide (MnO2) was electrodeposited galvanostatically onto a carbon fiber (CF) surface using the simple method of anodic electrodeposition. The composite electrode was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Very few studies investigated the efficiency of this electrode for heavy metals removal, especially chromium. The electrosorption properties of the nano MnO2/CF electrode were examined by removing Cr(VI) ions from aqueous solutions. NaCl concentration, pH, and cell voltage were studied and optimized using the Box-Behnken design (BDD) to investigate their effects and interactions on the electrosorption process. The results showed that the
... Show MoreDengke Naniura is a traditional food from Sumatera Utara, Indonesia, that is produced through fermenting process, and this food is believed to contain high probiotics. The objective of the current research is to determine the potential of LAB as a probiotic that has been obtained from Dengke Naniura. Dengke Naniura was traditionally prepared from Cyprinus carpio. Four LABs have been successfully isolated from Dengke Naniura, such as D7DA3, D7B3, D7DBF and D7DN3. Those four LAB isolates were identified as Lactobacillus sp. This result has been confirmed by the non-spore forming bacterium, non-motile, and Gram-positive. Also, it has been supported by biochemical test, for the example Voges Proskauer, catalase test, Methyl
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