Use of Biopolymer Adsorbent in the Removal of Phenol from Aqueous Solution

In this work, chitosan was extracted from local shrimp shell waste as low cost raw materials by chemical methods. The chitosan was impregnated with granular activated carbon to be used as adsorbents for the removal of phenol from aqueous solution by adsorption technique. The adsorbents were characterized by (FTIR) and (BET). The optimum condition for batch adsorption of the phenol and the maximum adsorption efficiency were found to be 78.4% for Chitosan (CH), 90.49% for chitosan impregnated granular activated carbon with different amounts of chitosan (10 wt.%) CHGAC 1 , 94.47% for chitosan impregnated granular activated carbon with different amounts of chitosan (20 wt.%) CHGAC 2 and 85.91% for Granular activated carbon (GAC) at 1.2 g, pH 7 and 6 hrs respectively. The equilibrium isotherm of (Chitosan CH, Chitosan impregnated granular activated carbon with different amounts of chitosan (10 wt.%) CHGAC 1 and Chitosan impregnated granular activated carbon with different amounts of chitosan (20 wt.%) CHGAC 2 ) for the phenol shows that the Langmuir isotherm fits the experimental data better than Freundlich and Temkin adsorption. The equilibrium isotherm of Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) for the phenol shows that the Freundlich isotherm fits the experimental data better than Langmuir and Temkin adsorption.