Artemisia vulgaris-derived mesoporous honeycomb-shaped activated carbon for ibuprofen adsorption

The purpose of the present work was to synthesize a novel mesoporous activated carbon from an invasive weed to investigate its potential application for removal of the emerging organic contaminants in waters. The worldwide highly consumable non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID); ibuprofen (Ibu), was chosen for the study due to its toxicity and global occurrence in waters. Keeping this in mind, Artemisia vulgaris (common name: Mugwort) leaves were processed by physical and chemical activation to obtain the mesoporous honeycomb-structured activated carbon (MAC) to mitigate Ibu. To understand the activity of the activated carbon towards contaminant, adsorption batch mode process was investigated for the solid–liquid phase characteristics of Ibu–water system. Both kinetic and equilibrium models were evaluated over a wide range of conditions to determine the rate laws and maximum Ibu uptake capacity. A decisive reliance of adsorption capacity on pH was observed in pH range from 2 to 9. The high surface area (358.20 m2/g), mesoporosity (2.46 nm) and surface functionality of MAC played significant role in Ibu uptake. Plausible mechanistic findings for adsorptive mitigation were substantiated by spectroscopic techniques viz. SEM, FTIR, EDX and ζ potentiometry.