Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Specific Retention Capacity and Efficiency of Common Activated Carbon Types?

VeritasC&E - 31-7-2021 at 15:05


After doing some research I've come to the assumption that activated carbons are good at retaining (A) Non-Polar Molecules (through Van Der Waals Adsorption) and (B) Small Molecules (through London Dispersion Force); whatever these forces may be.

Now I'm wondering if there exists a table with retention capacity and efficiency data vs specific molecules for (standardized) common activated carbon types? Or if maybe that's something useful we could compile together from different sources?

It would be really nice to co-compile a comprehensive guide on AC, including such things as preferred solvent type(s), preferred solvent concentration, ideal medium temperature, etc.

[Edited on 1-8-2021 by VeritasC&E]

Plunkett - 31-7-2021 at 17:19

This table from Air Pollution Control: A Design Approach by C. Cooper has data for the sorption of I2 and CCl4 by activated carbon from different sources. The I2 number is g of I2/100 g carbon after the carbon is saturated in a flowing stream of I2, and the CCl4 number is g CCl4/100 g carbon.
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[Edited on 8/1/2021 by Plunkett]

VeritasC&E - 1-8-2021 at 05:53

Quote: Originally posted by Plunkett  
This table from Air Pollution Control: A Design Approach by C. Cooper has data for the sorption of I2 and CCl4 by activated carbon from different sources. The I2 number is g of I2/100 g carbon after the carbon is saturated in a flowing stream of I2, and the CCl4 number is g CCl4/100 g carbon.


[Edited on 8/1/2021 by Plunkett]


Hi Plunkett! Thank you for your contribution!

Now we have data for typical CCl4 and I2 values for several types of AC (I2 being probably the most standard indicator parameter, along with surface area, for a given AC's general adsorption capacity).

The idea would be that together we make such a table with retention capacity and efficiency for each of the most common molecules we come across. A few years back I came across a paper that listed typical values, even including retention values for heavy metal species (from what I recall this was among the worst performance of AC, but different treatments would still yield some degree of heavy metal retention by AC). I can't find that paper anymore but it surely would provide us with retention capacity values for few molecules.