Pharmaceuticals have been widely remaining contaminants in wastewater, and diclofenac is the most common pharmaceutical pollutant. Therefore, the removal of diclofenac from aqueous solutions using activated carbon produced by pyrocarbonic acid and microwaves was investigated in this research. Apricot seed powder and pyrophosphoric acid (45 wt%) were selected as raw material and activator respectively, and microwave irradiation technique was used to prepare the activated carbon. The raw material was impregnated in pyrophosphoric acid at 80◦C with an impregnation ratio of 1: 3 (apricot seeds to phosphoric acid), the impregnation time was 4 h, whereas the power of the microwave was 700 watts with a radiation time of 20 min. A series of experiments were conducted at constant mixing speed (300 revolutions per minute) to evaluate the effect of experimental factors likes, adsorption time, pH of diclofenac solution, diclofenac initial concentration, and dosage of activated carbon on removal efficiency. The design of experiments (version 13 Stat-Ease) was implemented using the central composite method to define the optimum effect of the process factors on the removal efficiency. The analysis of variance showed that the quadratic model for the experiment was significant with a very low probability value (P- value < 0.0001). The adjusted R2 of the model was 0.9826 and the predicted R2 was 0.9574. Whereas the optimum conditions suggested by the model for the process variable were found to be 150 min, 3.25 pH, 30 mg/L, 0.267g, for adsorption time, pH of diclofenac solution, diclofenac initial concentration, a dosage of activated carbon, respectively and the maximum removal efficiency was found to be 94.6%. The data obtained from the experiments were fitted with Langmuir and Freundlich models and the results show that the data was well fitted Langmuir model with R2 = 0.9685 as compared to the Freundlich model which has R2 = 0.93249. Likewise, the data was analyzed by pseudo first and second-order kinetic models and the results show that the adsorption on apricot-activated carbon was well adequate with the pseudo-second-order model.
This work is focused on studying the effect of liquid layer level (height above a target material) on zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO and ZnO2) production using liquid-phase pulsed laser ablation (LP-PLA) technique. A plate of Zn metal inside different heights of an aqueous environment of cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) with molarity (10-3 M) was irradiated with femtosecond pulses. The effect of liquid layer height on the optical properties and structure of ZnO was studied and characterized through UV-visible absorption test at three peaks at 213 nm, 216 nm and 218 nm for three liquid heights 4, 6 and 8 mm respectively. The obtained results of UV–visible spectra test show a blue shift accomp
... Show MoreMetal and metal oxide NPs have shown to be perfectly synthesized by using plant extracts with high efficiency, low cost and low toxicity. Our goal was to synthesize ZnO NPs by using an extract of pomegranate seeds and investigate the anticorrosion, antimicrobial and antioxidant properties of the synthesized ZnO NPs. The results have shown that the use of pomegranate in the green synthesis of ZnO NPs gave a good yield, with a low cost and non-toxic approach. The electrophoretic deposition (EPD) was used to coat stainless steel (S.S) by synthesized ZnO NPs in an alcoholic solution at room temperature producing a good coating against corrosion. The corrosion properties were investigated in a saline solution and a temperature range of (293–32
... Show MoreUnused and expired pharmaceutical drugs are a novel type of organic corrosion inhibitor. They are less expensive, more effective, and less harmful than conventional organic corrosion inhibitors. This study investigated the effects of concentration, adsorption mechanism and thermodynamic parameters of enalapril malate (ENAP) as a corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel in a saline solution (3.5 % NaCl). The polarization method was used to determine the corrosion rate and inhibition efficiency. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and atomic force spectroscopy (AFM) were used to investigate the surface morphology and topography of carbon steel after immersion in both uninhibited and inhibited media for 24 h. Fourier transform inf
... Show MoreAG Al-Ghazzi, 2009
The thermal performance of a flat-plate solar collector (FPSC) using novel heat transfer fluids of aqueous colloidal dispersions of covalently functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes with β-Alanine (Ala-MWCNTs) has been studied. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with outside diameters of (< 8 nm) and (20–30 nm) having specific surface areas (SSAs) of (500 m2/g) and (110 m2/g), respectively, were utilized. For each Ala-MWCNTs, waterbased nanofluids were synthesized using weight concentrations of 0.025%, 0.05%, 0.075%, and 0.1%. A MATLAB code was built and a test rig was designed and developed. Heat flux intensities of 600, 800, and 1000 W/m2; mass flow rates of 0.6, 1.0, and 1.4 kg/min; and inlet fluid temperatures of 30, 40, an
... Show MoreThe oxidative degradation of Orange G dye by nanosized CeO2 catalyst has been performed in this study. The catalyst was prepared by precipitation method. Various characterization techniques were carried out to study the physical and chemical properties of the synthesized catalyst. The XRD result confirms well the formation of CeO2 cubic phase. The FTIR result showed the effect of calcination temperature for CeO2 was clearly observed due to reduction in band intensity compared to uncalcined Ce nitrate sample. Meanwhile, the diffused reflection spectra recorded reflection spectra at 414 nm with an energy gap of 3.2 ev. The decolorization of Orange G dye by oxidation process were carried out unde
... Show MoreOne of the most important techniques for preparing nanoparticle material is Pulsed Laser Ablation in Liquid technique (PLAL). Carbon nanoparticles were prepared using PLAL, and the carbon target was immersed in Ultrapure water (UPW) then irradiated with Q-switched Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm) and six ns pulse duration. In this process, an Nd:YAG laser beam was focused near the carbon surface. Nanoparticles synthesized using laser irradiation were studied by observing the effects of varying incident laser pulse intensities (250, 500, 750, 1000) mJ on the particle size (20.52, 36.97, 48.72, and 61.53) nm, respectively. In addition, nanoparticles were characterized by means of the Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) test, pH easurement
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The removal of water turbidity by using crumb rubber filter was investigated .The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of variation of influent water turbidity (10, 25 and 50 NTU), media size (0.6and 1.14mm), filtration rate (25, 45 and 65 l/hr) and bed depth (30 and 60 cm) on the performance of mono crumb rubber filter in response to the effluent filtered water turbidity and head loss development, and compare it with that of conventional sand filter.Results revealed that 25 l/hr flow rate and 25 NTU influent turbidity were the best operating conditions. smaller media size and higher bed depth gave the best removal efficiency while higher media size and small bed depth gave lower head
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