Experimental optimization of activated carbon synthesis by the simplex search method

To compete with the low price of petrol, thermochemical conversion of biomass should be viewed as both an energy and chemical source. Catalytic pyrolysis can produce activated carbon as a chemical and energy as a by-product, if inexpensive catalysts are available. In this paper, two parameters, namely NaCl (used as catalyst) and temperature, were found to affect the quality of the activated carbon produced from coconut shell and sawdust. Without mathematical modelling of the process, the Simplex search method led to the following maximum iodine numbers: for coconut shell, 685·8 mg/g at 794°C and 3·15 g NaCl/g coconut shell; for sawdust, 581·1 mg/g at 751°C and 5·52 g NaCl/g sawdust.

Modeling of biosorption by marine brown Undaria pinnatifida based on surface complexation mechanism

Biosorption is one of the useful phenomena that can be used for removal of heavy metals in wastewater. To date, many researchers have used Langmuir or Freundlich isotherms to quantify sorption capacity; however, these isotherms lack physical meaning for the adsorption mechanism, and parameters in isotherm equations must be obtained by experiment whenever environmental conditions change. We used a surface complexation model that considered adsorption phenomena as chemical reactions in solution. Using titration, we determined a surface active site and equilibrium constants for binding parameters. This model car, predict the pH effect on adsorption of Pb and could be applied to explain multi-ion and other competent chemicals such as EDTAclose151