Phenol adsorption kinetics and isotherms on coal: effect of particle size

Abstract

This work provided the adsorption method to removal phenol by using different coal particles. The characterization of the adsorbents was analyzed by Camsizer XT, FT-IR, X-ray diffusion and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller and Barrett-Joyner-Halenda. The adsorption capacity presents a linear increase as specific surface area increasing. To reveal the process of the adsorption, the adsorption kinetics and isotherms were performed. Pseudo-second-order was found to best represent the kinetics data, which indicated that the process belongs to chemisorption. The equilibrium isotherms data was analyzed by Langmuir model and Freundlich model, which indicated that the Freundlich model was good fitted for the adsorption processes.