Investigation of nickel adsorption from aqueous solutions using orange peel carbon

In this research, the adsorption of nickel ions in the batch system by orange peel carbon has been investigated and the effect of factors such as pH, contact time, initial concentration of nickel in solution, adsorbent amount, and the temperature has been considered. The surface details and functional groups were investigated by SEM and FTIR analyzes, respectively. In the study of the effect of pH, the highest percentage of nickel uptake for orange peel carbon occurred at pH = 6, which is equivalent to 58 mg/g. With increasing the contact time between the adsorbent and the solution and after 210 minutes, the adsorption percentage increased to 98.57%. In the study of the effect of the initial concentration of nickel in the range of 20 to  150 mg/L, the results showed that with increasing concentration, the percentage of adsorption decreased from 98% to 96%, and with increasing the amount of adsorbent from 0.01 to 0.1 g per 25 ml. Nickel solution, the adsorption percentage increased from 90% to 98%. The effect of temperature showed that with increasing the temperature from 25 to 45°C, the percentage of adsorption decreased from 99% to 97.8%. Thermodynamic properties were studied at three temperatures of 25, 35, and 45°C. The negative free energy value of the standard Gibbs (∆ Go) which is equivalent to -121.3 kJ / mol, indicates that the adsorption process is spontaneous and physical. In the kinetic study of the contact time effect, it was observed that the results fit well with the second-order kinetic model with a correlation coefficient of 99%. In investigating the effect of the initial concentration of nickel in solution and fitting experimental data with Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Dubin Radushkovich isotherms, and according to the values ​​obtained at R2, Freundlich's isotherm had the highest compatibility with 100% correlation coefficient.