Preparation of activated carbon from date stones by microwave induced chemical activation: Application for methylene blue adsorption

In this work, a low cost activated carbon was prepared from date stones char (DSAC) under microwave induced KOH chemical activation. The activation step was performed at the microwave input power of 600 W and irradiation time of 8 min. Porous texture, surface and functional characteristics were analyzed by N2 adsorption, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and equilibrium studies. Adsorption isotherm was fitted by Freundlich, Langmuir and Temkin isotherm models. Result showed that the monolayer adsorption capacity of the DSAC for methylene blue was 316.11 mg/g, while the BET surface area, Langmuir surface area and total pore volume of DSAC were 856 m2/g, 1275 m2/g and 0.4680 cm3/g, respectively.