Adsorption of phenol by oil–palm-shell activated carbons in a fixed bed.pdf

Chemical Engineering Journal 150 (2009) 455–461 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Chemical Engineering Journal j o u rn al h omepage: w w w. elsev /locate/cej Adsorption of phenol by oil–palm-shell activated carbons in a fixed bed Aik Chong Lua ∗ , Qipeng Jia School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Republic of Singapore a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Steam-activated carbons from oil–palm shells were prepared and used in the adsorption of phenol. The Received 26 September 2007 activated carbon had a well-developed non-micropore structure which accounted for 55% of the total pore Received in revised form 15 January 2009 volume. The largest Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area of the activated carbon was 1183 m2 /g Accepted 20 January 2009 3 with a total pore volume of 0.69 cm /g using N2 adsorption at 77 K. Experimental tests on the adsorp- tion of phenol by the activated carbons were carried out in a fixed bed. The aqueous phase adsorption Keywords: isotherms could be described by the Langmuir equation. The effects of the operation conditions of the Activated carbon fixed bed on the breakthrough curve were investigated. A linear driving force model based on particle Oil–palm shell Kinetic modelling