Adsorption of polluting substances on activated carbons.pdf

Ac h r m C ? K 1 m l c a v c c ( s p 7 e ( b i t p 1 dChemical Engineering Journal 144 (2008) 42–50 Adsorption of polluting substances on activated carbons prepared from rice husk and sugarcane bagasse Dimitrios Kalderis a,?, Dimitrios Koutoulakis a, Panagiota Paraskeva a, Evan Diamadopoulos a, Emilia Otal b, Joaqu??n Olivares del Valle b, Constantino Ferna?ndez-Pereira b a Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, 73100 Chania, Greece b Asociacio?n de Investigacio?n y Cooperacio?n Industrial de Andaluc??a (AICIA), University of Seville, Seville, Spain Received 2 August 2007; received in revised form 21 December 2007; accepted 4 January 2008 bstract Rice husk and sugarcane bagasse were chemically impregnated with ZnCl2 and carbonized at 700 ?C in a large-scale rotary furnace. The activated arbons (ACs) obtained had BET surface area of 811 and 864 m2/g, respectively, and were essentially microporous. The adsorption of arsenic, umic acid, phenol and a municipal solid waste landfill leachate was examined. Both ACs showed the best adsorption behaviour towards phenol, emoving around 80% at the equilibrium time of 4 h. The adsorption isotherms for arsenic and humic acid were also favourable, although the aximum loadings achieved were lower than that of phenol. Finally, the rice husk AC showed 60% and 70% removal efficiency for colour and OD, respectively, when tested on a landfill leachate. 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Arsen s t p p p p B r 0 b a s o r f 2eywords: Rice husk; Activated carbon; Sugarcane bagasse; Landfill leachate; . Introduction Activated carbon (AC) products are produced from organic aterials that are rich in carbon. The choice of precursor is argely dependent on its availability, cost and purity. The pre- ursor and the method used for activation largely determine the dsorption properties of the AC. Typical precursors for acti- ated carbon production are coal, lignite, wood, nut shells, peat, oke, etc. ACs can be p