Comparative study of acid yellow 119 adsorption onto activated carbon prepared from lemon wood and ZnO nanoparticles loaded on activated carbon

Activated carbon from lemon wood (AC) and ZnO nanoparticles loaded on activated carbon (ZnO‐NP‐AC) were prepared and their efficiency for effective acid yellow 199 (AY 199) removal under various operational conditions was investigated. The dependence of removal efficiency on variables such as AY 199 concentration, amount of adsorbent and contact time was optimized using response surface methodology and Design‐Expert. ZnO nanoparticles and ZnO‐NP‐AC were studied using various techniques such as scanning electron microscopy, X‐ray diffraction and energy‐dispersive X‐ray analysis. The optimum pH was studied using one‐at‐a‐time method to achieve maximum dye removal percentage. Small amounts of the proposed adsorbents (0.025 and 0.025 g) were sufficient for successful removal of AY 199 in short times (4.0 and 4.0 min) with high adsorption capacity (85.51 and 116.29 mg g^?1 for AC and ZnO‐NPs‐AC, respectively). Fitting the empirical equilibrium data to several conventional isotherm models at optimum conditions indicated the appropriateness of the Langmuir model with high correlation coefficient (0.999 and 0.978 for AC and ZnO‐NPs‐AC, respectively) for representation and explanation of experimental data. Kinetics evaluation of experiments at various time intervals revealed that adsorption processes can be well predicted and fitted by pseudo‐second‐order and Elovich models. This study revealed that the combination of ZnO nanoparticles and AC following simple loading led to significant improvement in the removal process in short adsorption time which was enhanced by mixing the media via sonication.