• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1280-1286
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• 2006

Three different virgin activated carbons made of each coal(Calgon), coconut(Samchully) and wood(Picabiol) based activated carbon(AC) were tested for an adsorption performance of 1,4-dioxane in a continuous adsorption column. Breakthrough behavior was Investigated that the breakthrough points of coal, coconut and wood based AC were observed as 3600 bed volumn(BV), 1440 BV and 144 BV respectively. Adsorption capacity(X/M) of coal, coconut and wood based AC was observed. The reported results of adsorption capacity showed that coal based AC was highest(578.9 ${\mu}g/g$), coconut based AC was intermediate(142.3 ${\mu}g/g$) and wood based AC was lowest(7.4 ${\mu}g/g$) due to increasing specific surface area. Moreover, carbon usage rates(CURs) for coal, coconut and wood based AC had been shown as 0.48 g/day, 1.41 g/day and 6.9 g/day respectively. The constant characteristic of the system, k of coal based AC was found to be 91.5 and k of coconut based AC was found to be 17.9. Removal efficiencies of 1,4-dioxane with different ozonation dosages(2 and 5 mg/L) for 20 min ozonation had been shown 38% and 87% respectively. There was no observation for biological removal of 1.4-dioxane by attached micro-organisms when used(3.1 years and over 5 years) biological activated carbon(BAC) without pretreatment of oxidation were employed. When a combination of ozonation(2 mg/L and 5 mg/L) and BAC process for $10{\sim}30$ min was applied, removal efficiency for 1,4-dioxine increased only $2{\sim}6%$ compared to only applying ozonation. Therefore removal efficiency of BAC process prior to using oxidation was proven to negligible. Consequently, the results presented in this paper provide a better insight into the adsorption performance of 1,4-dioxane. This observation suggests that using virgin activated carbon made of coal is the best selection for removal of 1,4-dioxane in the water treatment for an advanced treatment. It is clear from this research that longer EBCT for ozonation or higher ozone concentration are more effective operation methods for removal of 1,4-dioxane than longer EBCT in the BAC process.