Treatment of effluent containing micropollutants by means of activated carbon

Different amounts of granular activated carbon (GAC) have been tested for t he removal of aliphatic and aromatic micropollutants contained in a liquid stream coming from an industrial plant. Tests have been carried out in a JA R-Test apparatus, using plugged flasks, in order to eliminate the oxygen in fluence on the adsorption process and to obtain information for studying th e process in a pilot plant. The removal of aliphatic compounds resulted bet ter than aromatic ones, probably because these substances are enveloped by water molecules which make adsorption on the GAC surface easier; in contras t, aromatic compounds show a lower affinity for the GAC, owing to their ste ric conformation. The good results obtained confirm that the proposed syste m is applicable to the examined effluent, even when the concentration of th e pollutant load varies. In the latest part of this work, a plan for the co nstruction of a full-scale plant to treat the examined wastewater has been developed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.