A novel and inexpensive method for producing activated carbon from waste polyethylene terephthalate bottles and using it to remove methylene blue dye from aqueous solution

The current study aims to present a novel and inexpensive method for producing activated carbon using waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles in order to remove methylene blue (MB) dye from aqueous solution. Here, a novel method for producing activated carbon is developed by utilizing KOH and combining the carbonation and activation processes. Besides, the inert gases are not used in the production process. In order to determine the characteristics of the produced activated carbon texture, N-2 gas adsorption at 77K and scanning electron microscope are used. The adsorption isotherms of MB have been studied using Langmuir, Freundlich, Dubinin-Radushkevich, and Temkin models. The specific surface area and the total volume of the generated activated carbon pores are 353.307m(2)/g and 0.288cc/g, respectively. In addition, q(max) for adsorption of MB dye is obtained as 404.089mg/g. Obtained results show that the Langmuir isotherm model has the best fitness. The values of R-2, the sum of squares of the errors percentage, and chi(2) for this model are measured as 0.996, 3.878, and 0.109, respectively. The present study shows that PET bottles are appropriate precursors for producing activated carbon. Besides, the present proposed method is effective and inexpensive.