Parallel Chemical Activation and Surface Modification Activated Carbon for Lead Adsorption

Conventional activated carbon (AC) production can be costly and complicated. This research proposes parallel simultaneous chemical activation with phosphoric acid and surface modification with nitric acid to produce AC for lead removal. Conventional AC showed a 7.70% higher adsorption capacity of 62.41 mg/g than PAM AC at 57.95 mg/g, indicating that the proposed method successfully synthesized AC with comparable adsorption performance. Isotherm model analysis indicated that the best‐fit model describing adsorption phenomena for both ACs is the Langmuir isotherm, based on higher linear correlation coefficients and its suitability for describing the chemisorption of Pb 2+ onto AC. The economic evaluation found that adsorption using PAM AC offered a lower overall adsorption cost of $21.11/g Pb 2+ , a 36.56% reduction compared to conventional AC ($33.28/g Pb 2+ ), due to comparable adsorption capacity and significantly lower raw material costs.