Adsorption of poycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons onto tire activated carbon.

Abstract

The aim of the project is to investigate the feasibility of using Tire Activated Carbon as compared to Commercial Activated Carbon in adsorbing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) in aqueous solutions. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are widespread environmental pollutants which are carcinogenic and mutagenic. Overexposure would result in serious health problems and genetic defects in humans. In this research, activated carbon from waste tire (TAC) was obtained from HCl pre-treatment and steam activation. Naphthalene was adopted as a model compound to examine the effectiveness of removing PAHs from aqueous solution by TAC. Nonlinear isotherm models, i.e. Freundlich and Langmuir models were tested to fit the experimental data. Besides, kinetic models (pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order equations) are used to model the kinetic adsorption process. Pseudo-second order equation was found to be a better model for the adsorption process. The effect of pH and temperature on adsorption was studied as well. Commercial activated carbon was used to compare with the tire derived activated carbon of interest. It is concluded that Freundlich model is a better description of the process and kinetic data were well fitted by the pseudo-second-order equation. Increasing pH resulted in slight increase in TAC adsorption capacity. Both TAC and CAC showed insignificant effect from the increase in solution temperature.