25-04-2012, 02:30 PM
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE ACTIVATED CARBONS
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INTRODUCTION
Activated carbon is widely used for adsorption of pollutants from gaseous and liquid
streams (Peavy et al., 1985; Sai et al., 1997). Heavy metal pollutants are toxic both to
the humans and other living beings due to their presence beyond certain limits (Tare and
Chaudhari, 1995; Rai et al., 1998). The adverse effects of color, dye-bearing wastes,
organic pollutants such as organic acids, phenols, alcohols etc. that are present in
wastewater and suitability of activated carbon for the treatment of these wastes are well
documented in literature (Mall and Upadhyay, 1998; Rengaraj et al., 1999; Rao et al.,
2000). In spite of having advantages in terms of effectiveness and efficiency in the
removal of pollutants especially from wastewater (Rengaraj et al., 1999), the
commercial activated carbon is costly (Mall and Kumar, 1997). Hence there is a need to
develop novel and cheaper adsorbents.
NOVEL ADSORBENTS
An exhaustive literature survey is carried out for the variety of activated carbons
reported for their use in the treatment of contaminated water. A partial list of novel
adsorbents is collected from literature (Rai et al., 1998), compiled with respect to the
pollutant they are attempted to remove in the batch/column studies,
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The present study is focussed on a comparative study for the suitability of the activated
carbons for water/wastewater (contaminated water) treatment based on their physicochemical
characteristics.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Compliance studies with reference to IS codes
The physico-chemical characteristics reported in literature are given in Table-4. From
Tables-3 & 4, it is noticed that:
· The investigators have examined more characteristics than those prescribed under IS
codes.