Prediction of Adsorbability of Organic Compounds from Aqueous Solution on Activated Carbon by Means of the Linear Free-energy Relationship

A method is presented for predicting the adsorbability of a wide variety of organic compounds from aqueous solution onto an activated carbon. The method, which is based on the linear free-energy relationship, requires only the solute’s molecular refraction and the number of hydrophilic functional groups. The molecular refraction represents the free energy contribution by the solute-adsorbent interaction and the number of hydrophilic functional groups represents that by the solute-solvent interaction.