Air pollution remediation using synergetic coupling of AC/TiO2 filter for benzene gas removal: regeneration and reuse of spent activated carbon after the treatment process

Abstract

Recently, climate change and air pollution are of the most important problems confronting the world. Hence, the present work is designed to provide an air purifier that can be re-utilized many times with high efficiency for several volatile pollutants. The air purifier fabricated from AC/TiO2 was used to investigate the performance of this filter towards the removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the air. The filter was composed of a mixture of fiber layers (TiO2, SiO2 and AC). The results indicated that the synergistic coupling of adsorption/oxidation technique is effective for removal of the air pollutants as well as for regeneration of the activated carbon to be extensional reused. The performance test of air purifier confirmed its high removal efficiency (98%). It was found that nearly up to 94% and 86% recovery of the filter activity could be achieved after the second and third cycles of treatment, respectively. From these results, AC/TiO2 filter still has the capability to remove and control extra gas pollutants indicating the synergistic coupling effect of TiO2 with the activated carbon. This filter concerns in developing an economic and feasible air purifier system to remove air contaminants for several times.