Abstract
Recently supercritical water has been recognized as a potentially powerful method for the regeneration of spent activated carbon. Unlike thermal regeneration, supercritical water reaction decomposes the unwanted adsorbate but mildly oxidize the carbon, thereby causing little regeneration losses. However, it is likely that some porous properties and adsorption capacity might change during regeneration with supercritical water. The main purpose of this work is to investigate the effect of supercritical water treatment on the porous structure of three kinds of activated carbon: a commercial activated carbon (CAL carbon), activated carbon made from waste tire rubber, and activated anthracite. The porous characteristics of the activated carbons, namely, the micropore volume, mesopore volume and pore size distribution, will be determined from N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm measured at 77 K with the BET surface area analyzer. In addition, the effect of hydrogen-peroxide promoted supercritical water oxidation on the porous structure will also be studied.
