Study on the use of activated carbon to treat wastewater containing phosphorus

To study the sorption properties of activated carbon to wastewater containing phosphorus,the factors that might affect the phosphorus removal rate and adsorption amount of activated carbon were investigated,including the p H value of the solution,relative activated carbon dosage,adsorption time,initial mass concentration of phosphorus. The response surface methodology(RSM) and Box-Behnken design(BBD)models were used to optimize the adsorption conditions,and the adsorption kinetics experiment was also conducted. The results showed that the optimum conditions for phosphorus adsorption were as follows: the solution p H of 3,relative activated carbon dosage of 8 g/mg,adsorption time of 60 min,and initial mass concentration of phosphorus of 0. 78 mg/L. Under these conditions the phosphorus removal rate was 67. 92%. The results indicate that the pseudo-second-order kinetics equations can describe well the process of adsorption of wastewater containing phosphorus by activated carbon,and activated carbon has good adsorption property which can be used for the treatment of wastewater containing phosphorus.