Separation of hydrophobic organic compound from surfactant solutions with activated carbon in a fixed bed

The adsorption behavior of phenanthrene (PHE) in Triton X-100 (TX100) solutions with fixed activated carbon (AC) bed was studied to recover the surfactant. The effect of various parameters like bed depths, flow rates, influent TX100 concentration, and influent PHE concentration were investigated. The breakthrough time of both TX100 and PHE increased with the increase of bed height and decrease of flow rate and influent concentration. In the case of fixed length, a lower flow rate, higher concentration of TX100, and lower concentration of PHE will benefit the longer effective surfactant recovery time. The adsorption data were integrated into bed depth service time models. The height of exchange zone of TX100 should be much shorter than that of PHE, which provides conditions to separate the hydrophobic organic compound from surfactant solutions with AC in a fixed bed. It is likely that the adsorption process is controlled by hydrophobic interaction.