Adsorção de compostos fenólicos sobre carvão ativado

Abstract

In this study was evaluated the adsorption capacity of phenolics compounds on activated carbon. The carbon used in this work was chemically prepared from coconut shell and presented a surface area of 1181 m2 g-1. We ve done kinetics tests, equilibrium and thermodynamics tests, and also tests to verify the influence of physics and chemicals parameters on adsorption process, using the following phenolics compounds: p cresol, m cresol, phenol and hydroquinone. The data obtained in the equilibrium tests, ambient temperature (27ºC) and natural pH (liquid solution pH) of each compound, was used to adjust the adsorption isotherms. The models used were Freundlich, Langmuir, Redlich Peterson, Toth and Tempkin, being the best model that described the data, in the most of times, Redlich Peterson. The maximum quantity adsorbed of each compound followed the order: p cresol (Qmáx ≈ 47 mg g-1) > m cresol (Qmáx ≈ 45 mg g-1) > phenol (Qmáx ≈ 38 mg g-1) > hydroquinone (Qmáx ≈ 37 mg g-1). The kinetics tests were conducted in order to determinate the equilibrium time and verification of adsorption kinetics behavior of each compound. The equilibrium time for all compounds was 12 hours, but some of them reached the equilibrium before that time. The order of adsorption speed was: phenol (teq = 110 min) > p cresol (teq = 270 min) > m cresol (teq = 500 min) > hydroquinone (teq = 1000 min). Moreover, the kinetics data were adjusted to four models, being them: pseudo first order, pseudo - second order, intraparticle and Bangham. To phenol, the model that showed the best results was the pseudo model second order equation, to the cresols was the Bangham´s model and to the hydroquinone the pseudo second order and intraparticle. The thermodynamics tests were conducted in the following temperatures: 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50ºC and it were verified that adsorption process was exothermic and spontaneous. With thermodynamics data obtained, was possible determinate ΔHºads, ΔSºads e ΔGºads and to realize the heterogeneity study of activated carbon surface area. Moreover, we did tests to evaluate the pH, carbon mass and initial compound concentration influence on adsorption process. We verified that increasing the pH, the adsorption suffers prejudiced due to compounds dissociation. Increasing the carbon mass, the compound adsorbed quantity increases too, because there are more available sites to the adsorption. And increasing the initial compound concentration, the adsorption is favored because it increases the concentration difference of compound in the fluid and the carbon surface area, besides having more molecules to be adsorbed. In a general view, it was evaluated the capacity of phenol absorption in liquid solution on activated carbon, prepared from coconut shell, justified by the recent society preoccupation about the environment, were the industrial water waste which may contain harmful compounds to it, like phenol. So the studies of more efficient and better relation cost/benefit methods, to the removal of phenol are extremely important.