Competitive adsorption of Cu(II), Cd(II), and Ni(II) on acacia-derived fibrous carbon: Selectivity shift and AICc-based model selection

The need to implement new remediation techniques to address the environmental and public health issues related to heavy metal pollution in water systems is essential. However, there is a significant gap in understanding the complex mechanisms of competitive adsorption of different metal ions on biomass-based carbon materials. This study aims to fill this gap by producing fibrous activated carbon from Acacia mangium leaf waste via a one-step pyrolysis with potassium hydroxide (KOH) activation. This material was created with a specific surface area of approximately 800 m²/g, with a micro-meso porous structure that is indicative of osmotic potential. The competitive adsorption mechanisms of copper(II), cadmium(II), and nickel(II) ions in both single

and multi-metal aqueous systems were examined. By using the corrected Akaike information criterion (AICc), the authors obtained the desired model fit when evaluating the kinetics and isotherms. The Elovich model was the AICc minimum for all three metals and suggested a porous transition surface where chemisorption was the primary mechanism. For single-metal systems, the adsorption affinity was observed and followed the order of Cd(II) > Cu(II) > Ni(II) and coincided with the hydration free energies of the corresponding ions. In this way, the primary role in competitive adsorption was found to be that of coordination stability rather than the individual properties of the ions. These observations demonstrated that the phenomenon

of competitive ion adsorption changes the mechanisms and patterns of selectivity and is no longer an inherent quality of fibrous carbon material.

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