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In‐situ Regeneration of Phenol‐Saturated Activated Carbon Using Ethanol
Author(s) -
Matheickal J. T.,
Yu Q.,
Linden J.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
developments in chemical engineering and mineral processing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1932-2143
pISSN - 0969-1855
DOI - 10.1002/apj.5500060502
Subject(s) - adsorption , phenol , activated carbon , chemistry , regeneration (biology) , desorption , chemical engineering , ethanol , carbon fibers , pulp and paper industry , chromatography , organic chemistry , materials science , composite material , biology , composite number , engineering , microbiology and biotechnology
In‐situ regeneration of spent activated carbon can be a more cost effective alternative than the thermal regeneration method. This paper studies the suitability of ethanol for the regeneration of a granular activated carbon (Filtrasorb‐400), that was saturated with phenol from wastewater. Ethanol is less hazardous, completely miscible with water and offers convenient solvent recovery. The adsorption capacity of fresh activated carbon for phenol was found to be 208 mg g −1 . The recovery of phenol adsorption capacity of the carbon, operated cyclically using a sequence of phenol adsorption, desorption with ethanol, and rinsing with water, was determined in both batch and fixed‐bed processes. The kinetics of the regeneration process were also studied. In the fixed‐bed process, the regeneration efficiency by using ethanol was 98% after the first regeneration cycle and 94% after the third regeneration cycle. The corresponding values for batch operations were 89% and 85%, respectively. The kinetics of regeneration in batch processes were fast, and 90% of the total regeneration was complete within 30 minutes. The results from this study indicate that ethanol could be used to regenerate granular activated carbon in‐situ with only marginal loss of adsorption capacity.