Activated carbon from waste as an efficient adsorbent for malathion for detection and removal purposes

The widespread use of pesticides leads to considerable attention for pesticide detection and removal. Therefore, in the first part of this work, a simple and facile solid phase extraction (SPE) procedure for separation of malathion from soil and water samples, has been established. Malathion was recovered at a pH of 2.0–3.0 with limit of detection (LOD) of 0.026 ng L−1. While in the second part, the kinetics of the batch adsorption removal of malathion from aqueous solutions was investigated. Results showed that malathion adsorption onto activated carbon followed second order kinetics models most appropriately with adsorption capacity of 32.1 mg g−1.