Measurement of the Performance of an Agricultural Residue-based Activated Carbon Aiming at the Removal of 4-chlophenol from Aqueous Solutions

Looking for versatile adsorbent materials for industrial and environmental applications is a domain of research under active investigation now. Deglet-Nor date variety is one of the most important biomass resource in the south of Algeria, particularly in the region of Ouargla. Date stones, as an agricultural residue, are often unreasonably exploited in this region. Accordingly, in an attempt to valorize this abundant, low cost byproduct, we have studied the micro porosity of this raw material by carrying out two procedures. First, pyrolysis and physical activation were performed respectively under dry nitrogen and carbon dioxide atmospheres. Second, the resulting activated carbons were t h e n characterized by measuring their specific surface area (≈ 782 m2/g) and t h e m i c r o porous volume (≈ 0.27 cm3 .g-1). The capacity of adsorption was tested by removing 4-chlorophenol from aqueous solutions. Data analysis show that the better fit was obtained with Langmuir model where the capacity of adsorption was about 390 mg.g-1.