Activated carbon is commonly used for liquid-phase adsorptions, with applications numbering in the thousands. This chapter discusses the mechanisms of adsorption of inorganic and organic species from aqueous solutions. It highlights factors that control the extent of adsorption and applications of major industrial importance. While adsorption experiments from solutions are relatively simple compared to gas-phase systems, competitive adsorption can occur between the solvent and solute. The concentration of an acidic molecule also depends on the pH of the solution, as both non-dissociated and ionized forms may be adsorbed.
Activated carbon is commonly used for liquid-phase adsorptions, with applications numbering in the thousands. This chapter discusses the mechanisms of adsorption of inorganic and organic species from aqueous solutions. It highlights factors that control the extent of adsorption and applications of major industrial importance. While adsorption experiments from solutions are relatively simple compared to gas-phase systems, competitive adsorption can occur between the solvent and solute. The concentration of an acidic molecule also depends on the pH of the solution, as both non-dissociated and ionized forms may be adsorbed.
Activated carbon is commonly used for liquid-phase adsorptions, with applications numbering in the thousands. This chapter discusses the mechanisms of adsorption of inorganic and organic species from aqueous solutions. It highlights factors that control the extent of adsorption and applications of major industrial importance. While adsorption experiments from solutions are relatively simple compared to gas-phase systems, competitive adsorption can occur between the solvent and solute. The concentration of an acidic molecule also depends on the pH of the solution, as both non-dissociated and ionized forms may be adsorbed.
8.1 Liquid-Phase Adsorptions Applications of activated carbons (AC) in liquid-phase adsorptions are extensive, the number running into thousands. This Chapter makes no attempt to summarize such involvements, but concerns itself with explanations of mechanisms of adsorption of inorganic and organic species from the aqueous phase. In this way, an understanding of the factors which control extents of adsorption is made available and can be extended to other systems. This Chapter also highlights applications of major industrial importance. 8.1.1 Introduction AC is dominantly used for purposes of adsorption, a task for which it is well designed. Essentially, adsorption is restricted to working in one of two phases, from the gas/vapor phase (usually air) or from the Hquid phase (usually water). Fortunately, there is only one gas/vapor phase, but for liquids, two distinct phases need to be considered, namely adsorption from aqueous systems and adsorption from non-aqueous systems. From the point of view of research investment, studies into the properties of AC have massively been concerned with one-component systems (gas and liquid phases). To go to two-component, gas-phase systems requires a significant upgrading of experimental complexity requiring analysis of the gas phase as well as pressure changes. To go to threecomponent systems, as may be found in industrial environments, indeed, will be a challenging experiment. Adsorption from solution, in comparison, is relatively simple to do experimentally, as no volume changes are involved and modern analytical techniques can be easily adapted to measure concentration changes in solutions as complex as you wish. But, do not be deceived by this apparent simplicity. Competitive adsorption may occur between the solvent and the solute. Adsorption from solution may be further complicated because the solute may change chemically, or its concentration may change in the solution. Thus, concentration of an acidic molecule is a function of the pH of the solution and it is to be noted that both the non-dissociated molecule and an associated ion may be adsorbed. 383