Thermal modification of activated carbon surface chemistry improves its capacity as redox mediator for azo dye reduction

• Autor(a) principal: Pereira, Luciana
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Outros Autores: Pereira, Ricardo, Pereira, M. F. R., Van der Zee, F. P., Cervantes, F. J., Alves, M. M.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/11361
• topic: Activated carbon; Redox mediator; Azo dye; Reduction; Decolourisation; Science & Technology

The surface chemistry of a commercial AC (AC0) was selectively modified, without changing significantly its textural properties, by chemical oxidation with HNO3 (ACHNO3 ) and O2 (ACO2 ), and thermal treatments under H2 (ACH2) or N2 (ACN2 ) flow. The effect of modified AC on anaerobic chemical dye reduction was assayed with sulphide at different pH values 5, 7 and 9. Four dyes were tested: Acid Orange 7, Reactive Red 2, Mordant Yellow 10 and Direct Blue 71. Batch experiments with low amounts of AC (0.1 g L−1) demonstrated an increase of the first-order reduction rate constants, up to 9-fold, as compared with assays without AC. Optimum rates were obtained at pH 5 except for MY10, higher at pH 7. In general, rates increased with increasing the pH of point zero charge (pHpzc), following the trend ACHNO3 < ACO2 < AC0 < ACN2 < ACH2 . The highest reduction rate was obtained for MY10 with ACH2 at pH 7, which corresponded to the double, as compared with non-modified AC. In a biological system using granular biomass, ACH2 also duplicated and increase 4.5-fold the decolourisation rates of MY10 and RR2, respectively. In this last experiment, reaction rate was independent of AC concentration in the tested range 0.1–0.6 g L−1.