Abstract
The toxic pollutants phenol and cyanide in the bio-treated effluent of coking wastewater still need advanced treatment to meet environmental requirements. In this study, activated carbon prepared from municipal sludge and bamboo waste (SBAC) was used for simultaneous adsorption of phenol and cyanide from bio-treated effluent of coking wastewater. The results showed that the optimum removal efficiencies of volatile phenol (69.7%) and total cyanide (80.1%) were observed at a SBAC dosage of 8 g/L, a pH value of 8.0, and a contact time of 80 min. The physical and chemical properties of SBAC were analyzed using Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area (SBET), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. SBAC had high SBET (289.58 m2/g) and rich mesoporous structure (average pore diameter of 3.688 nm), and carboxylic groups on SBAC surfaces were enhanced due to the addition of bamboo waste. In addition, a kinetic model of pseudo-first-order fitted well with the experimental data of volatile phenol, while the adsorption of total cyanide onto the SBAC was better described by a pseudo-second-order kinetic model.
Highlights
In China, approximately 31.2 million tons of coking wastewater were produced from coal gas purification, coal coking, and the by-products recovery process of coking in 2017 [1]
When SBAC was applied as absorbent for coking wastewater treatment, volatile phenol and total cyanide were rapidly adsorbed
Due to the addition of bamboo waste (BW), a high surface area (289.578 m2 /g) with the presence of a rich mesoporous structure might be the main reason for the adsorption of volatile phenol and total cyanide over the SBAC
Summary
In China, approximately 31.2 million tons of coking wastewater were produced from coal gas purification, coal coking, and the by-products recovery process of coking in 2017 [1]. Coking wastewater contains a large amount of organic pollutants, such as phenol and cyanide, which are highly toxic to both human and aquatic life even at low concentrations [2]. Numerous methods have been developed and applied to coking wastewater treatment [3,4,5], biological technologies are still widely used in China because they are eco-friendly methods for degrading organic pollutants into harmless substances [5,6]. Of the organics in coking wastewater can be removed by biological degradation, but the phenol and cyanide contents in the bio-treated effluent still need further treatment to meet strict environmental requirements [1]. The application of commercial AC in wastewater treatment is limited by its high-cost and non-renewable nature, many efforts have recently been made to prepare
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