Comparative study on regeneration of spent activated carbon by chemical and thermal treatments

Abstract

Spent activated carbon had been collected from industry for regeneration purpose. Usually carbon that been use in industrial for treatment purpose will disposed as it include in schedule waste. Regeneration of spent activated carbon can avoid it from directly disposed. The regeneration of activated carbon can be done by thermal treatments and chemical package treatments. The objective in this study to evaluate the performance of spent activated carbon after regeneration by chemical and thermal treatments. Two methods of regeneration had been used for this study which is chemical regeneration and thermal regeneration. 6 M sodium hydroxide (NaOH) was used for chemical regeneration and for thermal regeneration the spent activated carbon was heat up to 800oC in pyrolysis under inert atmosphere condition. Methylene blue was used as media to determine the performance of the regenerated carbon. The percentage removals of methylene blue by thermal and chemical regeneration activated carbon for 1 g of carbon are 99.97% and 99.81% respectively. The equilibrium isotherms, for the sorption of methylene blue were analyzed using Langmuir and Freundlich models. The Langmuir model indicates the adsorption capacity of thermal and chemical regeneration is 333.33 mg/g and 1000 mg/g respectively. For the Freundlich model, the adsorption capacity of thermal and chemical regeneration is 120.542 and 39.965 respectively.