title: Nitrate uptake improvement by modified activated carbons developed from two species of pine cones.
abstract: Activated carbons from two species of pine cones (Pinus canariensis and Cupressus sempervirens) were prepared by phosphoric acid activation and tested for the removal of nitrate ions from aqueous solution. To investigate the feasibility of improving their nitrate adsorption capacity, two different post-treatments—a thermal treatment and a treatment with saturated urea solution—were also applied to the prepared activated carbons. Comparison of the treated and untreated activated carbons showed that both post-treatments improved the nitrate adsorption performance more than twice. The maximum adsorption capacity, as evaluated from determination of the adsorption isotherms for the P. canariensis based carbons, and their proper representation by the Langmuir model, demonstrated that the post-treatment with the urea solution led to activated carbons with increased nitrate removal effectiveness, even superior to other reported results. Enhancements in their adsorption capacity could be mainly ascribed to higher contents of nitrogen and basic functional groups, whereas porous structure of the activated carbons did not seem to play a key role in the nitrate uptake.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Investigación y Desarrollo de Fuentes Alternativas de Materias Primas y Energía (PINMATE), Departamento de Industrias, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pabellón de Industrias, Intendente Güiraldes 2620, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428BGA Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Av. Rivadavia 1917, C1033AAJ Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: G V
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Nunell
authors.affiliation: Programa de Investigación y Desarrollo de Fuentes Alternativas de Materias Primas y Energía (PINMATE), Departamento de Industrias, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pabellón de Industrias, Intendente Güiraldes 2620, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428BGA Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Av. Rivadavia 1917, C1033AAJ Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Fernandez
authors.affiliation: Programa de Investigación y Desarrollo de Fuentes Alternativas de Materias Primas y Energía (PINMATE), Departamento de Industrias, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pabellón de Industrias, Intendente Güiraldes 2620, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428BGA Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Av. Rivadavia 1917, C1033AAJ Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: P R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Bonelli
authors.affiliation: Programa de Investigación y Desarrollo de Fuentes Alternativas de Materias Primas y Energía (PINMATE), Departamento de Industrias, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pabellón de Industrias, Intendente Güiraldes 2620, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428BGA Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Av. Rivadavia 1917, C1033AAJ Buenos Aires, Argentina; Cátedra de Farmacotecnia II, Departamento de Tecnología Farmacéutica, Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Junín 956, C1113AAD Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Electronic address: analea@di.fcen.uba.ar.
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Cukierman
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D002244:Carbon / Q000378:metabolism*; D009566:Nitrates / Q000378:metabolism*; D028223:Pinus / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D009566:Nitrates; D002244:Carbon
keywords: Modified activated carbons; Nitrate adsorption; Thermal treatment; Urea treatment