DBD regeneration of GAC loaded with acid orange 7

Abstract

AbstractActivated carbon (AC) has been widely used as adsorbent in various industrial applications, such as purification of water in sewage facilities and filtration of air in toxicity‐treating factories. However, after exhaustion, AC should be regenerated and reused because of the limited resources for AC production and additional secondary pollution of spent‐carbon dumped into water or soil. In this study, a process for regenerating AC based on high active species (O3, ·OH, HO2, O2, ·RO, etc.) generated by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) oxidation was proposed. The regeneration of granular‐activated carbon (GAC) exhausted with azo dye acid orange 7 was investigated to assay this method. The influences of the parameters, such as treatment time, electric field and gas kind, on the readsorption rate were studied systematically. The results of structural properties of GAC analyses showed that the surface area, the micropore area, external surface area, micropore volume and total volume of GAC after three cycles DBD treatment decreased to different extent. The adsorption isotherms indicated that the regeneration efficiency was about 81% after three times DBD plasma regeneration cycles, which confirmed the reuse feasibility of the regenerated GAC. Copyright © 2009 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.