آب و فاضلاب (Jan 2010)
Experimental Study of Effects of pH, Temperature and H2O2 on Gasoline Removal from Contaminated Water Using Granular Activated Carbon
Abstract
Contamination of water with petroleum compounds is a serious environmental problem in Iran. Old fuel storage tanks, gasoline stations, and oil refineries are the main sources of gasoline leakage into water resources. In this study, the batch adsorption technique was used to investigate adsorption of petroleum compounds (gasoline) on granular activated carbon. Experiments showed that the adsorption capacity of activated carbon is a function of pH, temperature, and H2O2 concentration in solution. Maximum adsorption of petroleum compounds was obtained at pH of 8. Adsorption of petroleum compounds was increased by decreasing temperature (due to decreasing van der Waals forces between the adsorbent and the adsorbate) and H2O2 concentration in solution (due to the decrease in the initial concentration of the adsorbate by oxidation) . In this experiment, the maximum equilibrium capacity of granular activated carbon was 129.05 mg COD/g GAC at pH 8 and at an ambient temperature of 10˚C. The experimental adsorption data were fitted to the Freundlich and Langmuir adsorption model. The correlation coefficients calculated indicate that the Freundlich model was best fitted. Also, the regression analysis was used with a correlation coefficient of 0.981 to develop a model for describing the relationship between absorption variation in equilibrium state, pH, temperature, and H2O2. On the whole, the correlation coefficient calculated by the proposed model was found to be higher than Freundlich’s.
