186 Int J Petrochem Res. ISSN: 2638-1974 Volume 2 • Issue 2 • 1000133 International Journal of Petrochemistry and Research Research Article Open Access Optimization of preparation conditions for rice husk based activated carbons for the removal of methylene blue dye Murat MN 1 , Mohd Azmier Ahmad 1,3 * and Mohd Nazri Idris 2 1 School of Chemical Engineering, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia 2 Solid Waste Management Cluster, Science & Engineering Research Centre, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia 3 School of Materials and Mineral Resources Engineering, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia Article Info *Corresponding author: Mohd Azmier Ahmad School of Chemical Engineering Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia 14300 Nibong Tebal Penang, Malaysia Tel: +604 5996459 Fax: +604 5996908 E-mail: chazmier@usm.my Received: July 25, 2018 Accepted: August 25, 2018 Published: August 31, 2018 Citation: Murat MN, Ahmad MA, Idris MN. Optimization of preparation conditions for rice husk based activatedcarbons for the removal of methylene blue dye. Int J Petrochem Res. 2018; 2(2): 186-188. doi: 10.18689/ijpr-1000133 Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Published by Madridge Publishers Abstract This study investigates the optimal conditions for preparation of rice husk based activated carbon (RHAC) using carbon dioxide gasification of rice husk char undermicrowave irradiation.The central composite design (CCD) was used todetermine the effects of the two preparation variables; microwave power and activation time on MB removal and RHAC yield. Basedon the CCD, a quadratic model and linear modelswere developed for MB removal and RHAC yield, respectively. The significant factors on each experimental design responsewere identified from the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The optimum conditions for RHAC preparation were obtained by using activation time of 4.28 min and microwave power of 440 W, which resulted MB removal of 83.05% and RHAC yield of 31.98%. Keywords: Activated carbon, Adsorption, Methylene blue, Microwave heating,Optimization, Rice husk Introduction The textile industry uses dyes to color their product consume large quantities of water [1]. More than 100,000 commercially available dyes with over 7 x 10 5 tonnes of dyestuff produced every year have been estimated [2]. At the same time, massive amount of textile wastewater is produced during dyeing and finishing processes. One of the serious issues associated with textile wastewater is colored effluent as they produce an obvious color to water even at low concentration [3]. Therefore, the appearance of dyes onto streams and rivers are categorized as threatening pollutant that should not be neglected. Indeed, removal of dyes from the effluent before its disposal in water bodies is very important [4]. In the last few years, great attention has been placedon utilizing waste as precursor for producing low- cost activated carbon. In this study an attempt was made to find the optimum preparation condition of producing activated carbon from rice husk waste. Methodology The rice husk was placed in a Pyrex glass reactor in the chamber of the microwave oven. The microwave irradiation was carried at targeted radiation time and radiation power under carbon dioxide flow of 150 ml/min as suggested by the Design Expert software. The response surface methodology (RSM) design known as central composite design (CCD) was used in this study. The variables involved were microwave power (x 1 ) and activation time (x 2 ) with MB removal (y 1 ) and RHAC yield (y 2 ) as responses. The code levels for CCD are shown in Table 1. ISSN: 2638-1974