• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.477-493
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• 2016

Immediate use of activated carbon incorporated polysulfone membrane application for dye separation was reported in this work. Dimethylformamide (DMF) was used as the solvent for the membrane preparation. The membrane thus prepared were characterized in terms of surface morphology, ATR-FTIR, AFM, experimental results as membrane performance. The resultant nanofiltration (NF) membranes were tested with Congo red dye concentration 200 mg/L. The water permeability was found to be considerably higher than that reported in literature. Experimental results show that the real rejection of the Congo red is 99.57% over the transmembrane pressure 100 psi using 30% activated carbon incorporated membrane. Prepared NF membranes shows the corresponding permeates fluxes were $40Lm^{-2}h^{-1}$ to $82Lm^{-2}h^{-1}$ with different activated carbon percentage incorporated in polysulfone membrane. The present study demonstrated that dye rejection enhanced NF may be a feasible method for the dye wastewater treatment. The overall observations thus indicated that toxic residual dyes can be appreciably separated from the membrane technology, provided that the accompanying polymeric membrane, activated carbon as binding agents and the process parameter levels are astutely selected.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.311-316
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• 2008

This study aimed to obtain equilibrium concentration on adsorption removal of ammonia nitrogen by activated carbon, to express the adsorption characteristics following Freundlich isotherm and also, based on the value obtained, to investigate the relationship between physical characteristics of activated carbon and dynamics of ammonia nitrogen removal by obtaining rate constant and effective pore diffusivity. The results summarized from this study are as follows. It was noted that powdered activated carbon showed better adsorption ability than granular activated carbon. The value of constant (f) of Freundlich isotherm of powered activated carbon was $4.6{\times}10^{-8}$ which is bigger than that of granular activated carbon. The adsorption rate constant on ammonia nitrogen of powered activated carbon with high porosity and low effective diameter was highest as 0.416 hr-1 and the effective pore diffusivity ($D_e$) was lowest as $1.17{\times}10^{-6}cm^2/hr$, and the value of ammonia nitrogen adsorption rate constant of granular activated carbon was $0.149{\sim}0.195hr^{-1}$. It was revealed that, with the same amount of dosage, the adsorptive power of activated carbon with lower effective diameter and bigger porosity was better and its rate constant was also high. With a little adsorbent dosage of 2 g, there was no difference removal ability of ammonia nitrogen as change of adsorption properties.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.815-820
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• 2013

The purpose of this research is to prepare the aluminum electrode coated with activated carbon for removing air pollution dust. The experiments were studied on the selection of optimal polymer for binding aluminum plate with powdered activated carbon, preventing the pore blocking of activated carbon from polymer binder, and the dust treatability for the prepared activated carbon electrode. The optimal adhesive for coating activated carbon on an electric aluminum plate was polyvinyl acetate (PVA) with vinyl functional group. For the opening of the blocked pore with polymer, it was very effective to embed polymer solvent in pore of activated catbon firstly before mixing activated carbon with PVA, and then to devolatilize the embedded solvent of carbon pore at high temperature. The mass of trapped dust on aluminum electrode coated with activated carbon was about double of the trapped one on just aluminum electrode.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.339-349
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• 2013

Biological treatment of RO concentrate from wastewater reuse process is known to be very difficult due to its high concentration of non-degradable organics and salt ions such as chloride, nitrate and phosphate. In this research, the treatment performance of MBR was examined using RO concentrate mixed with raw wastewater as the influent of MBR. Addition of PAC (powdered activated carbon) to MBR was also evaluated in order to enhance the treatment performance and stability. The performance of MBR for treating only RO concentrate decreased gradually although external carbon source was added. The average removal performance of MBR with and without PAC decreased from 99.1 %(98.8 %) to 94.9 %(91.4 %) for COD, 81.3 %(80.3 %) to 42.0 %(41.9 %) for T-N and 57.3(55.0 %) to 30.0 %(21.0 %) for T-P with the increase of RO concentrate mixing rate of 0 % to 20 % in the feed water. Addition of PAC showed positive effect on the performance of MBR for the removal of COD and phosphorus in case that the ratio of RO concentrate to feed water increased.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.195-201
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• 2007

A submerged flat-sheet membrane separation system integrated with PAC (powdered activated carbon) was used in this research in order to investigate the effects of PAC on the efficiencies of operation and treatment and to evaluate the performance of the system. The experiments were carried out under operating conditions of a filtration rate of 0.38 m/d, water temperature of $20-28^{\circ}C$, and PAC dose of 0 g/L (Run-A) and 20 g/L (Run-B). The influent concentrations of TOC (total organic carbon), $NH_4{^+}-N$ (ammonia nitrogen) and $UV_{254}$ (UV absorbance at 254 nm) were 2.48 mg/L, 1.4 mg/L and 2.53 1/m, respectively. TOC removal of 43.2 and 73.6%, ammonia nitrogen removal of 4.9 and 15.9%, and $UV_{254}$ removal of 20.6 and 31.6% were obtained for Run-A and Run-B, respectively. During an experimental period of 33 days, no change was found in TMP (Run-B), but the TMP in Run-A increased by 5 kPa after 29 days. This research showed that the filtrate quality and the performance efficiency were enhanced when PAC was introduced into the filtration system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.1319-1330
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• 2000

Activated carbons prepared by chemical activation of organic waste sludges with $ZnCl_2$ and $K_2S$ have been studied in terms of their pore development and adsorptivity. Pore development of the carbons prepared from organic waste sludges was characterized by the nitrogen adsorption at 77K. The $ZnCl_2$-activated carbon produced by chemical activation with zinc chloride exhibited type I isotherm characteristics according to the BDDT classification, suggesting the presence of micropores formed by activation process. The isotherms of the commercial powdered activated carbon and $K_2S$-activated carbon reveal a hysteresis similar to that of type IV in BDDT classification, indicating the formation of mesopores. This result implies that the major pores of $K_2S$-activated carbon are composed of meso and micropores, and a macropores are minor. The adsorptive capacities of metal on the $K_2S$-activated carbon prepared from organic waste sludges were found to be superior to those on a commercial granular activated carbon. The Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms yield a fairly good fit to the adsorption data, indicating a monolayer adsorption of metals onto $K_2S$-activated carbon. The adsorptive capacity of the $K_2S$-activated carbon was superior to $ZnCl_2$-activated carbon for $PO_4$-P, and vice versa for $NO_3$-N. From the results of the studies reported here, it can be concluded that activated carbons with adsorptivity superior to commercial granular activated carbons can be produced from organic waste sludge using a two-step carbonization/activation procedure with zinc chloride or potassium sulfide as the activating agents.

• Carbon letters
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.167-172
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• 2012

Most heavy metals are well-known toxic and carcinogenic agents and when discharged into wastewater represent a serious threat to the human population and the fauna and flora of the receiving water bodies. The present study aims to develop a procedure for Pb (II) removal. This procedure is based on using powdered activated carbon, which was prepared from walnut shells that were generated as plant wastes and modified with potassium carbonate and phosphoric acid as chemical agents. The main parameters, such as effect of pH, effect of sorbent dosage, Pb (II) concentrations, and various contact times influence the sorption process. The experimental results were analyzed by using Langmuir, Freundlich, Tempkin, and Dubinin-Radushkevich adsorption models. The kinetic study of Pb (II) on activated carbon from walnut shells was performed based on pseudo- first order and pseudo- second order equations. The data indicate that the adsorption kinetics follow the pseudo- second order rate. The procedure was successfully applied for Pb (II) removal from aqueous solutions.

• Carbon letters
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.115-120
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• 2012

Most heavy metals are well-known toxic and carcinogenic agents and when discharged into wastewater represent a serious threat to the human population and the fauna and flora of the receiving water bodies. The present study aims to develop a procedure for Pb(II) removal. The study was based on using powdered activated carbon, which was prepared from walnut shells generated as plant wastes and modified with potassium carbonate or phosphoric acid as chemical agents. The main parameters, such as effect of pH, effect of sorbent dosage, Pb(II) concentrations, and various contact times influence the sorption process. The experimental results were analyzed by using Langmuir, Freundlich, Tempkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich adsorption models. The kinetic study of Pb(II) on activated carbon from walnut shells was performed based on pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order equations. The data indicate that the adsorption kinetics follow the pseudo-second order rate. The procedure was successfully applied for Pb(II) removal from aqueous solutions.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.285-292
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• 2018

In the following study, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is used for prediction of permeate flux decline during oily wastewater treatment by hybrid powdered activated carbon-microfiltration (PAC-MF) process using mullite and mullite-alumina ceramic membranes. Permeate flux is predicted as a function of time and PAC concentration. To optimize the networks performance, different transfer functions and different initial weights and biases have been tested. Totally, more than 850,000 different networks are tested for both membranes. The results showed that 10:6 and 9:20 neural networks work best for mullite and mullite-alumina ceramic membranes in PAC-MF process, respectively. These networks provide low mean squared error and high linearity between target and predicted data (high $R^2$ value). Finally, the results present that ANN provide best results ($R^2$ value equal to 0.99999) for prediction of permeation flux decline during oily wastewater treatment in PAC-MF process by ceramic membranes.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.301-308
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• 2018

We investigated simultaneous removal of heavy metals such as Cr, Ni, and Zn by adsorption onto powdered activated carbon (PAC) and PAC modified with sodium diethyldithiocarbamate (PAC-SDDC). Modification of PAC was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Both PAC and PAC-SDDC reached adsorption equilibrium within 48 h, and the adsorption kinetics followed a pseudo-second order reaction kinetics. The removal of metals was enhanced with increasing both adsorbent dosage and followed the descending order of Cr > Ni > Zn for PAC and Cr > Zn > Ni for PAC-SDDC, respectively. Adsorption kinetics followed pseudo-second order kinetics. Adsorption kinetic results were well fitted by the Freundlich isotherm except for Cr adsorption onto PAC. The optimum pH for heavy metal adsorption onto PAC was 5, whereas that for PAC-SDDC ranged from 7 to 9, indicating that modification of PAC with SDDC significantly enhanced heavy metal adsorption, especially under neutral and alkaline pH conditions. Our results imply that SDDC modified PAC can be applied to effectively remove heavy metals especially Cr in plating wastewaters without adjusting pH from alkaline to neutral.