Water pollution is characterized by the presence of a wide variety of substances found in significant quantities in this environmental compartment, which requires the installation of high-performance treatments. Among the multiple technics of treatment, one can mention the adsorption on activated carbons which enable the retention of organic molecules. This led to the development of high-cost granular activated carbons to specifically reduce some micro-pollutants or macro-molecules. This work aims at designing a low-cost activated carbon adsorbent material by giving it properties to adsorb a broad spectrum of the pollutant load of effluents rich in organic molecules such as landfill leachate. The first phase of this study involved the synthesis of activated carbon from avocado core with optimization of manufacturing conditions, followed by physical and chemical characterization. Activated carbon with the highest iodine index value (1506 mg.g-1) and the highest specific surface area (862 m2.g-1) was obtained. FTIR results confirms the presence of carboxylic functional groups, lactones and phenols. Phenol removal tests were carried out in batch mode to evaluate the adsorbent performance. Results showed that equilibrium was reached during a contact time of 60 min for an adsorption capacity of 48 mg.g-1. The study of adsorption kinetics revealed the adequacy of the pseudo-second order kinetic model. These results show that avocado kernels would be good adsorbent for organic compounds in solution.

Keywords: avocado kernels, adsorption, activated carbon, leachate.