Ground Coffee Waste-Derived Activated Carbon for Aqueous Dye Adsorption
Teerunishan SUBRAMANIAM, Norsuria MAHMED, Muhammad Salihin ZAKARIA, Haiza HAROON
Abstract. Ground coffee waste (GCW), an abundant agro-industrial by-product, poses significant environmental challenges if improperly disposed. This study explores the valorization of GCW through the synthesis of activated carbon (AC) for potential use in wastewater treatment. A two-step activation process was employed to produce the AC. First, GCW was carbonized at two different temperatures (450 °C and 900 °C) under an inert atmosphere. The resulting char was then chemically activated using phosphoric acid (H₃PO₄) at varying concentrations of 30, 40, and 50 wt%, respectively. The impregnated samples were subsequently dried to enhance pore development. The prepared AC was evaluated through batch adsorption studies to determine its effectiveness in removing methylene blue (MB) dye from aqueous solutions. Optimal adsorption performance was observed for the sample carbonized at 900 °C and activated with 30 wt% H₃PO₄, which achieved a maximum MB removal efficiency of 99.73% using 2 g of AC over 120 minutes. These results demonstrate the viability of GCW-derived AC as a cost-effective and sustainable adsorbent, offering a promising alternative for dye removal in water treatment applications.
Keywords
Ground Coffee, Activated Carbon, Dye Removal, Methylene Blue, Porous
Published online 7/15/2026, 8 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Teerunishan SUBRAMANIAM, Norsuria MAHMED, Muhammad Salihin ZAKARIA, Haiza HAROON, Ground Coffee Waste-Derived Activated Carbon for Aqueous Dye Adsorption, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 68, pp 49-56, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904237-7
The article was published as article 7 of the book Green Materials, Processing & Characterization
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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