Adsorptive recovery of an essential rose oil component from aqueous solution by nanoporous carbon (CMK-3)

A nanoporous carbon (CMK-3) was synthesized and used to adsorb 2-phenylethanol (PEA) from aqueous solutions. The characterization of CMK-3 by N-2 adsorption isotherm revealed the formation of a nanoporous carbon with average pore diameter and surface area of 3.34 nm and 1268 m(2) g(-1), respectively. Column-like particle morphology of CMK-3 was observed from scanning electron microscope images. To evaluate the feasibility of CMK-3 as a potential PEA adsorbent, batch adsorption experiments were conducted for aqueous PEA solutions. The results showed that CMK-3 is an efficient sorbent for the separation of PEA from water. The optimized adsorbent doses were found to be 0.3 and 2.2 g L-1 for 30 and 300 mg L-1 PEA, respectively. Our studies about the effect of pH on CMK-3 adsorption capacity revealed that the adsorption capacity increased at lower pH due to the protonation of PEA. Three adsorption models, Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin were used to describe the adsorption isotherms. Thermodynamic parameters such as Delta G (0), Delta H (0), and Delta S were also evaluated, and it was found that the sorption process was spontaneous, endothermic, and physical in nature. The adsorption kinetics was investigated in detail and the pseudo-second-order kinetic equation fitted the experimental data very well. The mechanistic study by Weber-Morris model revealed that the overall adsorption process was simultaneously governed by external mass transfer and intraparticle diffusion. Almost all (97 %) adsorbed PEA was successfully recovered into ethanol which is a common solvent in fragrance industry. CMK-3 was proved to be a promising adsorbent for the adsorption-recovery of PEA from aqueous solution.