Adsorption of Cd (II) on Modified Granular Activated Carbons: Isotherm and Column Study.

In this work, equilibrium and dynamic adsorption tests of cadmium Cd (II) on activated carbons derived from different oxidation treatments (with either HNO₃, H₂O₂, or NaOCl, corresponding to GACoxN, GACoxP, and GACoxCl samples) are presented. The oxidation treatments determined an increase in the surface functional groups (mainly the acidic ones) and a decrease in the pHPZC (except for the GACoxCl sample). A slight alteration of the textural parameters was also observed, which was more significant for the GACoxCl sample, in terms of a decrease of both Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area and micropore volume. Adsorption isotherms were determined for all the adsorbents and a significant increase in the adsorption performances of the oxidized samples with respect to the parent material was observed. The performances ranking was GACoxCl > GACoxP > GACoxN > GAC, likely due to the chemical surface properties of the adsorbents. Dynamic tests in a fixed bed column were carried out in terms of breakthrough curves at constant Cd inlet concentration and flow rate. GACoxCl and GACoxN showed a significantly higher value of the breakpoint time, likely due to the higher adsorption capacity. Finally, the dynamic tests were analyzed in light of a kinetic model. In the adopted experimental conditions, the results showed that mass transfer is controlled by internal pore diffusion, in which surface diffusion plays a major role.