Cost-effective adsorbent from arabinogalactan and pectin of cactus pear peels: Kinetics and thermodynamics studies.

Cactus pear peel as agricultural waste containing arabinogalactan and pectin was thermally treated at 300 °C for 4 h and the resultant carbonized material was applied as adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue dye as a model cationic dye. The prepared adsorbent was characterized by means FTIR for structural characterization, N physisoprtion measurements for texture properties, SEM and EDAX for morphological and elemental analysis. The characterization results clearly show that the prepared material is porous with several -OH and CO terminals.