Adsorption of bisphenol a from aqueous solutionsby activated tyre pyrolysis char – Effect of physicaland chemical activation

This paper aims to show the effect of activation method of tyre pyrolysis char (TPC) on adsorptionof bisphenol A (BPA) from aqueous solutions. The TPC was produced from end-of-life-tyres (ELT)feedstock in a pilot plant at 773 K. Activation was accomplished using two classical methods: physicalactivation with CO2and chemical activation with KOH. The two produced adsorbents had pores rangingfrom micro- to macropores. Distinct differences in the BET surface areas and pore volumes betweenthe adsorbents were displayed showing better performance of the chemically activated adsorbent foradsorption of BPA from water.The results of the kinetic studies showed that the adsorption of BPA followed pseudo-second-orderkinetic model. The Freundlich, Langmuir, Langmuir–Freundlich and Redlich–Peterson isotherm equa-tions were used for description of the adsorption data. The Langmuir–Freundlich isotherm model bestfits the experimental data for the BPA adsorption on both adsorbents. The Langmuir–Freundlichmonolayer adsorption capacity,qmLF, obtained for the CO2-activated tyre pyrolysis char (AP-CO2)and KOH-activated tyre pyrolysis char (AP-KOH) were 0.473 and 0.969 mmol g