Supercritical Regeneration of an Activated Carbon Fiber Exhausted with Phenol

Abstract

Featured Application: Authors are encouraged to provide a concise description of the specific application or a potential application of the work. This section is not mandatory. Abstract:The properties of supercritical CO 2 (SCCO 2 ) and supercritical water (SCW) turn them into fluids with a great ability to remove organic adsorbates retained on solids. These properties were used herein to regenerate an activated carbon fiber (ACF) saturated with a pollutant usually contained in wastewater and drinking water, phenol. Severe regeneration conditions, up to 225 bar and 400 • C, had to be employed in SCCO 2 regeneration to break the strong interaction established between phenol and the ACF. Under suitable conditions (regeneration temperature, time, and pressure, and flow of SCCO 2 ) the adsorption capacity of the exhausted ACF was completely recovered, and even slightly increased. Most of the retained phenol was removed by thermal desorption, but the extra percentage removed by extraction allowed SCCO 2 regeneration to be significantly more efficient than the classical thermal regeneration methods. SCCO 2 regeneration and SCW regeneration were also compared for the first time. The use of SCW slightly improved regeneration, although SCW pressure was thrice SCCO 2 pressure. The pathways that controlled SCW regeneration were also investigated.

Adsorption Characteristics of Phenolic Compounds on Graphene Oxide and Reduced Graphene Oxide: A Batch Experiment Combined Theory Calculation

“…A large number of studies have focused on waste water purification contaminated by phenols, and various techniques have been developed to efficiently remove them. At present, the most widely used methods for phenol removal have included biological degradation [2,3], photocatalytic decomposition [4,5], chemical oxidation [6,7], 2 of 13 hydrodynamic cavitation [8,9] and adsorption [10][11][12][13]. Among these approaches, adsorption seem to have a particular advantage due to its relatively low cost, speed and convenience of operation.…”