Abstract
Activated carbon was prepared from renewable plant material, that is Euphorbia rigida, by chemical activation using zinc chloride
as activating reagents. The adsorption of Basic Blue 9 (BB9) onto activated carbon was investigated in a batch system with
respect to contact time, pH and temperature from aqueous solutions. The experimental data indicated that the adsorption isotherms
are well described by the Langmuir isotherm model and the calculated maximum adsorption capacity of activated carbon was
155.62 mg g–1 at 40oC. The experimental data fitted very well to pseudo-second order kinetic model and also followed by the
intraparticle diffusion model up to 60 min. The thermodynamic parameters such as change of free energy, enthalpy and entropy of
adsorption were also calculated to estimate the nature of adsorption. The results show that activated carbon prepared from
Euphorbia rigida, which is a wild and abundant plant, by zinc chloride chemical activation could be employed as low-cost
material to compare with commercial activated carbon for the removal textile dyes from textile wastewater processes.