• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.475-483
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• 2017

Geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB) produced by cyanobacteria during algal blooming in surface water are the major taste-and-odor-causing compounds in drinking water and need to be removed. Activated carbon is often used in treatment plants for the mitigation of odor problem. However, there is a lack of information on the effect of pore size distribution and particle size of activated carbon for adsorption of both odor compounds. Therefore, we studied the effect of pore size distribution and particle size of activated carbon on the adsorption of geosmin and 2-MIB. When comparing the adsorption of geosmin and 2-MIB between activated carbon fiber (ACF), powdered activated carbon (PAC) and granular activated carbon (GAC), the order of removal efficiency was PAC > ACF > GAC. As a result of comparing PACs with various pore distribution characteristics, well-developed micropores on activated carbon were found to be favorable for adsorption of geosmin and 2-MIB. For particle size, smaller was more effective for adsorption of geosmin and 2-MIB.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.275-276
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• 2000

• 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.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.102-115
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• 1990

Importance of anaerobic digestion as an energy generating device has been increased as fuel shortage becomes serieous. Several modification methods on the conventional digesters including Powdered Activated Carbon (PAC) addition and two-phase digestion were studied to enhance the gas production. This study investigated the effects of PAC on anaerobic digestion of chicken manure in terms of gas production and sludge stabilization. As a first experiment, an optimum PAC dose for efficient gas production was determined in a batch test. In semi-continuous experiments, an optimum Sludge Retention Time (SRT) at that PAC concentration and an overall substate utilization rate coefficient were investigated. A portion of gas increased by PAC addition was estimated using a substrate utilization rate coefficient of microorganisms attached on PAC. This test was performed in batch experiments using acetic acid as a substrate. The digesters for all experiments were kept 35${\pm}$ 1˚C in a heated water bath. Mixing was performed manually once a day and the produced gas was collected for daily reading. The following conclusions were made for this study. 1. Cptimum PAC concentration was 5% total solids, where gas production rate was increased by 20 percents. 2. Optimum SRT was 7.5 days. 3. Substrate utilization rate coefficient of microorganisms attached on PAC was about twice as much as that of suspended ones.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.141-148
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• 2008

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of PAC(Powder Activated Carbon) retention time on stable operation of high concentration powered activated carbon(HCPAC-MBR) in the treatment of secondary domestic wastewater. The pilot scale HCPAC-MBR system was operated at two different SRTs, 25 days and 100 days. The main drawback of HCPAC-MBR system was the rapid increase of trans-membrane pressure. The increase rate of trans-membrane pressure was proportional to SRT value at constant flux. This result seemed to be caused by reduced amount of EPS adsorbed on the PAC in the reactor by decreasing the SRT of the PAC. The particle size of the PAC was also influenced by SRT. The PAC size was decreased as SRT was increased. The change of particle size could be one reason for the change of trans-membrane pressure. The pore volume in the cake-layer formed on the membrane surface became to be increased by reducing SRT, because the cake-layer was highly composed of the PAC. Therefore, increased pore volume might play a role to reduce the trans-membrane pressure. The removal rate of E260 and TOC was also inversely proportional to SRT value.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.483-492
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• 2021

This study evaluated the removal efficiencies of methylene blue (MB) and humic acids (HA) using a rice husk (RH) biochar and powdered activated carbon (PAC). The pseudo-second-order model better presented the adsorption of MB and HA onto a RH biochar than the pseudo-first-order model. Furthermore, better description of the adsorption behavior of MB and HA by the Langmuir isotherm model (R² of the RH biochar: MB = 0.986 and HA = 0.984; R² of PAC: MB = 0.997 and HA = 0.989) than the Freundlich isotherm model (R² of the RH biochar: MB = 0.955 and HA = 0.965; R² of PAC: MB = 0.982 and HA = 0.973) supports the assumption that monolayer adsorption played key roles in the removal of MB and HA using the RH biochar and PAC. Batch experiments were performed on the effects of dosage, temperature, and pH. For all experiments, PAC showed higher efficiencies than RH biochar and MB adsorption efficiencies were higher than those of HA. Adsorption efficiencies increased with increasing amounts of adsorbents and temperature. As the pH increased, adsorption efficiencies of MB were increased while adsorption efficiencies of HA were decreased.

• 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.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.629-635
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• 2012

This study was conducted to evaluate the removal behaviors of DOM(dissolved organic matter) and phosphorus in eutrophic lake water by coagulation process with PAC(powdered activated carbon). It was observed that the removal characteristic of soluble matter was different from that of dissolved one, and the removal of DOM was effected by both pH and coagulant dosage. It was founded that PAC could increase the removal efficiency by an adsorption of DOM in coagulation process. A formation of soluble and colloidal matters resulted in the degradation of phosphorus removal efficiency in a chemical precipitation process. The phosphorus removal efficiency could be enhanced by an absorption of colloidal matter and dissolved complex with PAC addition. In addition, the PAC addition caused the increase of floc density in coagulation process, that led to the rise of sedimentation rate, and resulted in a significant improvement of solid-liquid separation efficiency.

• Carbon letters
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.191-198
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• 2007

Recent studies have revealed the poisonous nature of aluminum(III) species to aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Therefore, this investigation aims to develop batch adsorption experiments in the laboratory, aiming to the removal of aluminum(III) from aqueous solutions onto powdered activated carbon (PAC). The latter (which is an effective and inexpensive sorbent) was prepared from olive stones generated as plant wastes and modified with an aqueous modifying oxidizing agent, viz. $HNO_3$. The main parameters (i.e. initial solution pH, sorbent and $Al^{3+}$ ions concentrations, stirring times and temperature) influencing the sorption process were examined. The results obtained revealed that the sorption of $Al^{3+}$ ions onto PAC is endothermic in nature and follows first-order kinetics. The adsorption data were well described by the Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) adsorption models over the concentration range studied. Under the optimum experimental conditions employed, the removal of ca. 100% $Al^{3+}$ ions in the concentration range $1.35-2.75\;mg{\cdot}l^{-1}$ was attained. Moreover, the procedure was successfully applied to the recovery of aluminum spiked to some environmental water samples with an RSD (%), does not exceed 1.22%.

• 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.