Activated carbon adsorption / Roop Chand Bansal, Meenakshi Goyal

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Activated carbons are versatile adsorbents. Their adsorptive properties are due to their high surface area, a microporous structure, and a high degree of surface reactivity. They are, used, therefore, to purify, decolorize, deodorize, dechlorinate, separate, and concentrate in order to permit recovery and to filter, remove, or modify the harmful constituents from gases and liquid solutions. Consequently, activated carbon adsorption is of interest to many economic sectors and concem areas as diverse as food, pharmaceutical, chemical, petroleum, nuclear, automobile, and vacuum industries as well as for the treatment of drinking water, industrial and urban waste water, and industrial flue gases. Interest in activated carbon adsorption of gases and vapors received a big boost during and after the first World War, while an increasing attention to the activated carbon adsorption from aqueous solutions was initiated by the pollution of the environment, which includes air and water, due to rapid industrialization and everincreasing use of the amount and the variety of chemicals in almost every facet of human endeavor. Life has initiated increasing attention to the activated carbon adsorption from aqueous solutions. It was, therefore, thought worthwhile and opportune to prepare a text that describes the surface structure of activated carbons, the adsorption phenomenon, and the activated carbon adsorption of organics and inorganics from gaseous and aqueous phases. A vast amount of research has been carried out in the area of activated carbon adsorption during the past four or five decades, and research data are scattered in different joumals published in different countries and in the proceedings and abstracts of the Intemational Conferences and Symposia on the science and technology of activated carbon adsorbents. This book critically reviews the available literature and tries to offer suitable interpretations of the surface-related interactions of the activated carbons. The book also contains consistent explanations for surface interactions applicable to the adsorption of a wide variety of adsorbates that could be strong or weak electrolytes. The book has been written with a view to equip the surface scientists (chemists, physicists, and technologists) with the surface processes, their energetics, and with the adsorption isotherm equations, their applicability to and deviations from the adsorption data for both gases and solutions. To carbon scientists and technologists, the book should help understand the parameters and the mechanisms involved in the activated carbon adsorption of organic and inorganic compounds. The book thus combines in one volume the surface physical and chemical structure of activated carbons, the surface phenomenon at solid-gas and solid-liquid interfaces, and the activated carbon adsorption of gaseous adsorbates and solutes from solutions.