Preparation of polyacrylnitrile (PAN)/ Manganese oxide based activated carbon nanofibers (ACNFs) for adsorption of Cadmium (II) from aqueous solution

N Abdullah¹, N Yusof¹, J Jaafar¹, AF Ismail¹, F E Che Othman¹, H Hasbullah¹, W N W Salleh¹ and N Misdan²

Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, Volume 36, conference 1

paper-iop-dila

In this work, activated carbon nanofibers (ACNFs) from precursor polyacrylnitrile (PAN) and manganese oxide (MnO₂) were prepared via electrospinning process. The electrospun PAN/MnO₂-based ACNFs were characterised in term of its morphological structure and specific surface area using SEM and BET analysis respectively. The comparative adsorption study of cadmium (II) ions from aqueous solution between the neat ACNFs, composite ACNFs and commercial granular activated carbon was also conducted. SEM analysis illustrated that composite ACNFs have more compact fibers with presence of MnO₂ beads with smaller fiber diameter of 437.2 nm as compared to the neat ACNFs which is 575.5 nm. BET analysis elucidated specific surface area of ACNFs/MnO₂ to be 67 m²/g. Under adsorption study, it was found out that Cd (II) removal by ACNFs/MnO₂ was the highest (97%) followed by neat ACNFs (96%) and GAC (74%).