COMPETITIVE ADSORPTION OF BISOLUTE PHENOLS ONTO GRANULAR ACTIVATED CARBON

A series of equilibrium experiments have been conducted to assess the capactiy of granular activated carbon (GAG) to adsorb three bisolute c ontaminants of phenols including p-nitrophenol/phenol, p-chlorophenol/ phenol acid p-chlorophenol/p-nitrophenol. The observed equilibrium dat a are analyzed and compared with four existing models, i.e, Langmuir c ompetitive model, extended three-parameter isotherm, ideal adsorbed so lution theory and modified ideal adsorbed solution theory. The mutual interferences of phenolic adsorption onto GAC are prominent by experim ental observation and the bisolute adsorption isotherm curves can be r epresented by ideal adsorbed solution theory for all three binary phen olic mixtures. Furthermore, modified ideal adsorbed solution theory ca n reduce the deviations between the experimental and calculated values . The dete mination of the sorbent capacity will offer the accurate de scription of bisolute equilibrium behavior for designing the activated carbon adsorber to remove phenol pollutants from wastewater.