Adsorption and catalytic ozonation performance of activated carbon and cobalt‐supported activated carbon derived from brewing yeast

Activated carbon (AC) was prepared from brewing yeast by NaCO activation, and cobalt was supported on activated carbon (Co/AC) by the adsorption–activation method. The XPS test indicated that supported cobalt was Co(II). The total BET surface areas of prepared AC and Co/AC were 957.7 and 847.9 m/g, with total pore volumes of 0.81 and 0.80 cm/g, respectively. The average pore diameters of AC and Co/AC were found to be 3.8 and 3.3 nm. The contact time required for equilibrium of methylene blue (MB) adsorption onto prepared AC and Co/AC was about 120 min. The maximum uptake of MB by AC and Co/AC was estimated to be 372.1 and 213.5 mg/g, respectively. The presence of prepared AC or Co/AC was advantageous for TOC reduction compared with UV/O system, and the greatest TOC removal was obtained in the presence of Co/AC. The kinetics of the degradation of MB fitted the Langmuir-first-order model well. The rate constants of Langmuir first-order were determined to be 0.0096 min−1 for UV/O/AC and 0.0143 min−1 for UV/O/Co/AC, respectively.