ABSTRACT
Activated carbon is a widely used adsorbent across a range of process industries, including water filtration and gas adsorption. Granular Activated Carbon is generated from a carbonaceous source, such as coconut husk, peat, wood, lignite, or coal via carbonization/pyrolysis to generate the chemical structure of the material, and activation to generate the porosity. A range of factors affect the performance of activated carbons in removing contaminants in environmental applications. Activated carbon is comprised predominantly of microcrystalline planes of aromatic carbon with several impurities related to the initial material composition and activation process. Predicting adsorption equilibria is useful due to the cost of laboratory experiments and the number of potential organic pollutants. Continuous-flow granular activated carbon (GAC) systems generally utilize adsorbent columns, which can be fixed, expanded, fluidized, or pulsed. Fixed bed adsorbent columns are often designed in either cylindrical or rectangular geometries. The two most important variables in GAC adsorbent columns systems are the contact time and breakthrough characteristics.
