In this study, copper sulfide nanoparticles loaded on activated carbon (CuS-NP-AC) were synthesized by novel, low cost and green approach and characterized using SEM and XRD. The application of this material for the simulations removal of auramine O (AO) and safranine O (SO) from aqueous solutions was investigated. The dependency of removal percentages to variables such as pH, initial dyes concentration, adsorbent dosage, sonication time and sonication temperature were studied with response surface methodology (RSM) by considering the desirability function (DF). The quadratic model between the dependent and the independent variables was built. The proposed method showed good agreement between the experimental data and predictive value, and it has been successfully employed to removal of AO and SO in aqueous media. The studied adsorbent (0.06 g of CuS-NP-AC) was capable of high percentage removal (99.8% and 99.5%) of 18 mg mL(-1) AO and SO in short time (7.0 min).
Keywords: Activated carbon; Adsorption; Central composite design; Copper sulfide nanoparticles; Dyes; Response surface methodology.
Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.