Preparation, characterization and adsorption application of spherical carbon adsorbents obtained from sulfonated polymers

Abstract

Investigations of the production and steam activation of synthetic spherical carbon adsorbents from an ion-exchange resin have been carried out. The spherical adsorbents are obtained by carbonization of a polysulfonated cation-exchange resin containing different amounts of the sulfonic group on its surface. As a secondary process, steam activation of the carbons obtained was used, which created the possibility of forming adsorbents with the desired surface area and pore structure. In some activation processes a cation catalyst was used. Heat treatment and/or partial activation in the temperature range 873–1173 K caused burning of 10–70% of the initial weight of the carbon adsorbent, which leads to formation of an active carbon adsorbent with a surface area of 400–1100 m 2 g −1. The adsorbent obtained was used for adsorption of various volatile organic compounds from air or from aqueous solution by the dynamic head space technique, and then the adsorbed compounds were recovered directly by column thermodesorption (on-line) in order to be determined chromatographically. For some of the compounds investigated, the test of sorbent effectiveness in removing chlorinated organic compounds (i.e., trihalomethanes (THM) and chlorophenols) from aqueous solution was performed using solid phase extraction (SPE).