Fabrication of activated carbon from polyethylene terephthalate plastic waste (PET) and their application for the removal of organic dyes in aqueous solution

Abstract

Synthetic plastics have been considered as non-biodegradable materials. Polyethylene terephthlate (PET), one types of synthetic plastics, is commonly employed in many daily products. However, the end-use of the PET-based products is usually discarded to the environment, which causes serious problems to the ecosystem and human health. In this work, PET plastic waste was utilized to fabricate the activated carbon using the physical activating approach. The CO₂ gas was used as activating agent. The effects of activating temperature, carbonizing and activating time on the surface areas of activated carbon were investigated. The prepared activated carbon was well-characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), FTIR, and BET. The resultant activated carbon prepared from the FET plastic waste revealed high absorption toward methylene blue in aqueous solution in a wide range of pH solutions. The fabrication of activated carbon from the plastic waste not only address the environmental issues, but also produce high-value activated carbon for the environmental remediation.