Activated Carbon Performance for the Treatment of Diesel-Derived Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

Abstract

This study assessed the performance of activated carbon (AC) amendment to treat polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) including both parent-and alkylated-moieties in sediment impacted by diesel. A field-collected, diesel-impacted sediment with a NAPL content of 1% was used for the study. No. 2 diesel fuel is weathered by heating at 70°C for 4 days to obtain a weathered diesel sample having C3-naphthalenes to C2-phenanthrenes/anthracenes (N2/P3) ratio similar to the original sediment. The sediment samples spiked with the weathered diesel to obtain non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) contents of 1, 5 and 10% were contacted with AC with a dose of 5% as sediment dry weight for 1 month. By the AC-sediment contact, the freely-dissolved equilibrium concentrations were substantially reduced. Even for sediment with 10% NAPL content, the reductions in the freely-dissolved concentrations were 92% and 75% for total parent-and alkylated-PAHs, respectively. The effect of NAPL contents on the performance of AC was negligible for parent-PAHs, while for alkylated-PAHs, a slightly reduced AC performance was observed. The results suggest that the AC amendment can be an effective option for the treatment of petroleum-impacted sediment with relatively high NAPL contents.