ADSORPTION PERFORMANCE OF THIOPHENE ONTO MODIFIED ACTIVATED CARBONS

Coconut shell carbon and Coal-based activated carbon were chemically modified by oxidation with ammonium peroxysulfate and ozone.The adsorption performance for thiophene by the modified activated carbons was investigated.Results showed that the porous structure of the modified coconut shell activated carbon remained primarily unchanged with regard to the virgin carbon.However, the surface area and microporous volume of coal-based carbon were increased.A great amount of surface oxygen functional groups was detected by the Boehm's titration and FT-IR analysis.The performance of modified carbons for thiophene adsorption increases considerably and the correlation to Langmuir-Freundlich adsorption isotherm equations was also enhanced.The adsorption kinetics was tested with pseudo first-order, pseudo second-order and intraparticular diffusion rate equations.The rate constants of adsorption for these kinetics models were calculated.The pseudo second-order model provided the better correlation of data.Meanwhile the influencing factors of the adsorption properties are also analyzed.