Adsorption of bisphenol-S microplastic onto KOH-treated activated carbon derived from mango peel

Abstract The endocrine-disrupting properties of microplastics, such as bisphenol-S (BPS), raise societal concerns. This study aimed to address these concerns by producing activated carbon from mango peel (MPAC) to remove BPS microplastics from aqueous solutions. Chemical activation using KOH was employed to produce the MPAC. The BET surface area of MPAC was 727.34 m 2 /g, with a mesopore surface area of 541.06 m 2 /g and a mean pore of 2.41 nm, classifying it as mesoporous. In equilibrium studies, increasing the starting BPS saturation from 5 to 30 mg/L resulted in increased adsorption uptake from 2.17 to 8.10 mg/g. The Langmuir model provided the best description of the adsorption system, indicating a maximum monolayer capacity (Q m ) of 13.20 mg/g. Kinetic assessment indicated that the adsorption system fit the pseudo-first-order (PFO) model best. Boyd plot analysis verified that film diffusion was the rate-limiting stage in the BPS-MPAC adsorption system. The study demonstrates that KOH-treated AC derived from mango peel is an effective adsorbent for BPS microplastics adsorption. Subsequent research should concentrate on evaluating the performance of MPAC in real water systems containing complex mixtures of contaminants to assess its practical applicability and effectiveness.