Studies of the polar and apolar liquid film properties of pure and modified activated carbons by thermal analysis and sorptiometric methods

Thermal analysis was used to investigate the adsorbed water layers and surf ace properties of various pure and modified commercial activated carbons. I n addition, the thermodesorption of n-butanol, n-octane and benzene from sa mples saturated in a vacuum desiccator was studied under quasi-isothermal c onditions. The mass loss Q-TG and differential mass loss Q-DTG curves obtai ned consisted of steps and inflections which were associated with the mecha nism of wetting, adsorption and porosity properties of the studied surfaces , Adsorption/desorption isotherms of nitrogen on the activated carbon sampl es were measured using a sorptiomatic method. The specific surface areas, p ore sizes, pore volumes and pore-size distribution functions have been calc ulated for the various samples. A correlation between the porosity paramete rs obtained from thermogravimetric and sorptiometric methods is presented.