Removal of a Chlorinated Volatile Organic Compound (Perchloroethylene) from the Aqueous Phase by Adsorption on Activated Carbon
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Vincent Goetz; Marianne Miguet; Gael Plantard; Yves Jaeger
- Source
- Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. 54:9813-9823
- Subject
- chemistry.chemical_classification
Chromatography
Environmental remediation
General Chemical Engineering
Aqueous two-phase system
General Chemistry
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Adsorption
chemistry
Chemical engineering
Mass transfer
medicine
Volatile organic compound
Particle size
Groundwater
Activated carbon
medicine.drug
- Language
- ISSN
- 1520-5045
0888-5885
The remediation of groundwater contaminated by the common pollutant perchloroethylene (PCE) is reported. The studied process is adsorption using a fixed-bed column packed with granular activated carbon (GAC). An original setup was designed to perform the isotherms. Small particle sizes and full-scale GAC were tested. Adsorption capacity decreases with increasing particle size in the presence of natural organic matter. Columns running in dynamic-mode PCE in-feed were used to test three operating conditions. Sampling along the columns was used to monitor PCE concentration in the liquid phase at different column lengths. A large data set was collected. A mathematical model based on mass balance of PCE was adopted to predict the adsorption dynamics under various operating conditions. Global mass transfer coefficients were identified to find the best fit with the experimental data. The model was reliable and accurate over the whole data set. The performances of the fixed bed were evaluated in terms of operatio...