Development of Mango Peel Derived Activated Carbon-Nickel Nanocomposite as an Adsorbent towards Removal of Heavy Metal and Organic Dye Removal from Aqueous Solution

In this study activated carbon has been prepared using waste mango fruit peels as the precursor in a facile manner (MAC). In order to increase the efficiency and regenerability of activated carbon, nickel nanoparticles were impregnated. Morphological and crystalline structures of the prepared composite were investigated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. MAC/Ni as an adsorbent was found to remove 98 % and 93 % of Rhodamine B (RhB) dye and manganese ions (Mn2+) from their aqueous solutions. The regeneration study demonstrated that after the completion of five adsorption cycles, the removal efficiency for RhB and Mn2+ was 88.7 % and 85.2 %, respectively, corroborating the reusability of the prepared adsorbent. The kinetics of the adsorption of RhB and Mn2+ ions on the surface of nanocomposite was found to follow the pseudo-second order model with a great degree of accuracy (R-2 similar to 0.99). The value of the equilibrium parameter R-L was found to be 0.015 and 0.003 respectively for RhB and Mn2+ at 303 K which suggested that the Langmuir isotherm could be used to describe the favorable adsorption of the RhB dye and Mn2+ ions on the adsorbent under the conditions used in the study.