Synthesis of activated carbon from spent tea leaves for aspirin removal

Adsorption capacity of activated carbon prepared from spent tea leaves(STL-AC) for the removal of aspirin from aqueous solution was investigated in this study. Preliminary studies have shown that treatment with phosphoric acid(H_3PO_4) increased removal efficiency of STL-AC. Characterizations on STL-AC revealed excellent textural properties(1200 m~2·g~(-1), 51% mesoporosity), as well as distinctive surface chemistry(1.08 mmol·g~(-1) and 0.54 mmol·g~(-1) for acidic and basic oxygenated groups, pH_(pzc)= 2.02). Maximum removal efficiency of aspirin observed was 94.28% after 60 min when the initial concentration was 100 mg·L~(-1), 0.5 g of adsorbent used,pH 3 and at a temperature of 30 ℃. The adsorption data were well fitted to the Freundlich isotherm model and obeyed the pseudo-second order kinetics model. The adsorption of aspirin onto STL-AC was exothermic in nature(ΔH~Θ=~(-1)3.808 k J·mol~(-1)) and had a negative entropy change, ΔS~Θ(-41.444 J·mol~(-1)). A negative Gibbs free energy, ΔG~Θ was obtained indicating feasibility and spontaneity of the adsorption process. The adsorption capacity of AC-STL(178.57 mg·g~(-1)) is considerably high compared to most adsorbents synthesized from various sources, due to the well-defined textural properties coupled with surface chemistry of STL-AC which favors aspirin adsorption. The results demonstrate the potential of STL-AC as aspirin adsorbent.