Scavenging of Priority Organic Pollutants from Aqueous Waste Using Granular Activated Carbon

Compliances with stringent effluent discharge limits imposed by environmental protection agencies (EPA) and the most economic way of achieving it without loss of production has led to continued refinement, recognition and development of promising wastewater treatment technologies. Many organic compounds present in industrial and domestic wastewaters are carcinogenic in nature. Removal of these organic compounds from wastewater has become a great challenge to wastewater treatment technologies, as many of them are non-biodegradable in nature. Adsorption on granular activated carbon (GAC) has emerged an efficient and economically viable technology for removal of final traces of a broad spectrum of toxic organic compounds from domestic and industrial wastewater. In the present investigation adsorption of some priority organic pollutants, namely phenol, o-cresol, p-nitrophenol, m-methoxyphenol, benzoic acid and salicylic acid on granular activated carbon, was studied in a batch system at laboratory scale. Experiments were carried out to determine adsorption isotherms and kinetics for adsorbate when present in aqueous solutions as single, bi- and tri-solute systems. The commercially available bituminous coal based granular activated carbon Filtrasorb 300 (F-300) was used as adsorbent. The results indicate that p-nitrophenol is most strongly adsorbed as compared to other phenols studied. Aqueous phase solubility of the adsorbate plays a deciding role in multi-component systems as more hydrophobic p-nitrophenol adsorbs to a greater extent than less hydrophobic phenol, o-cresol and m-methoxyphenol. The preferential adsorption of strongly adsorbable solute over a weakly adsorbable one has been observed, as the solutes are competing for the available surface area of the adsorbent for adsorption.