Evaluation of Activated Carbon as a Substratum to Phytoremediate Eutrophic Wastewater

In this paper, we study on the use of Vietnam activated carbon made from coconut shell as the role of a substratum to phytoremediate eutrophic wastewater. To determine the ability of the activated carbon as a substratum, the characteristics of the surface of activated carbon and the adsorption kinetics models were studied. SEM images showed that the activated carbon did not have the definite shape, while FTIR result revealed the presence of SiO2 and PO4 3- in the component of the activated carbon. pH PZC of activated carbon was determined in the range of 8.4-8.7 by the pH drift method. The pseudo second-order kinetics model had the highest value of R2 and the equilibrium amount calculated from the pseudo second-order kinetics equation was 0.343 mg.g-1 with the rate constant of adsorption was 0.096 g.mg-1.min-1. The Freundlich adsorption isotherm cannot be used to describe the adsorption because the value of R2 was 0.114, while Langmuir isotherm had the value of R2 was 0.997, and the maximum adsorption capacity for forming single layer was equal to 0.338 mg.g-1, Langmuir constant was equal to 0.292 L.mg-1.