Adsorption of phenol onto activated carbon from seaweed: Determination of the optimal experimental parameters using factorial design

Brown seaweed biomass was used as a precursor for the preparation of activated carbon employing zinc chloride activation. The activated carbon was characterized and employed as an adsorbent for the removal of phenol from aqueous solution. In order to reduce the number of experiments to achieve better phenol removal efficiency, two independent sets of full 23 factorial design experiments were carried out. The results showed that all the factors were significant, besides several interactions among the factors were also significant. Using this statistical tool, the best conditions for phenol removal by the seaweed based activated carbon was established as pH 3.0; initial concentration of phenol 150 mg/L; adsorbent dosage 10 g/L; time 4 h; experimental temperature 50 °C and an agitation speed of 75 strokes/min. The maximum phenol uptake under these experimental conditions was 98.31%.