Khajornsak Sopajaree, Apichate Kleepklang, and Pradipat Bamrungsri

pp. 97 - 108

Abstract

The effects of temperature and volumetric loading rate on adsorption capacity of phenol by granular
activated carbon were studied using F-300 and C2-115 granular activated carbon. All the experiments were
conducted both in a batch study and a fixed-bed adsorption column study with the initial phenol concentration of 10 mg/l. In the batch study, the effects of temperature on the adsorption capacity and the rate of
adsorption were determined. The results from the batch study showed that the rate of adsorption of F-300
was higher than that of C2-115. Moreover, it was clearly shown that the adsorption capacity increased with
increasing temperature in both types of activated carbon at a contact time of 5 hours. In addition, the results
from the fixed-bed column study revealed that the adsorption capacity decreased with increasing volumetric
loading rate. Regression analysis expressed that the constants of Bohart-Adams Model ( K ) at volumetric
loading rate of 2.5 , 5.0 and 10.0 m³/m²-hr were 0.0027 , 0.0063 and 0.0128 l/mg-hr for F-300 and 0.0021,
0.0071 and 0.0127 l/mg-hr for C2-115, respectively. N₀ constant at volumetric loading rates of 2.5, 5.0 and
10.0 m³/ m²-hr were 30,393, 19,502 and 13,997 mg/l for F-300 and 27,752, 13,873 and 10,535 mg/l for C2-115, respectively. Thus, it can be summarized that the performance of F-300 was higher than that of C2-115
activated carbon at the studied conditions.