Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 3334–3345 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings 2214-7853 © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of 7th International Conference of Materials Processing and Characterization. ICMPC 2017 Synthesis of activated carbon from agricultural waste using a simple method: Characterization, parametric and isotherms study Jatinder Kumar Ratan a , Manjeet Kaur a , Bharadwaj Adiraju a * a Department of Chemical Engineering, Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar-144011, Punjab, India Abstract A low- cost activated carbon has been produced from agricultural waste using a simple method. Rice husk, corncob and wheat straw have been used as precursor for synthesis of activated carbon. A simple method involving chemical activation using NaCl has been tried for production of activated carbon. The synthesized activated carbon has been characterized using SEM (Scanning electron microscopy), FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), EDS (Energy-dispersive-X-ray spectroscopy), BET surface area analyzer, proximate and ultimate analysis. The adsorption experiments were also performed to evaluate the adsorption capacity of the prepared activated carbon. The effects of contact time, adsorbent dose and solution pH on the adsorption process were studied. The applicability of the Langmuir and Frendulich isotherms to the experimental data has also been investigated. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of 7th International Conference of Materials Processing and Characterization. Keywords: Activated carbon, adsorption, isotherms, water purification. 1. Introduction Purified drinking water is essential for living a healthy lifestyle. Contaminated drinking water may cause serious diseases [1]. These diseases result in plenty of deaths of children under five years in developing countries [2]. The purification of drinking water is one of the biggest issues all over the world especially in rural and remote areas where availability of safe drinking water is limited. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-9876850908 E-mail address: kumarj@nitj.ac.in