Preparation and Characterization of Sewage Sludge-Based Activated Carbon

Abstract

In this study, a sewage sludge-base activated carbon (SSAC) was prepared by means of ZnCl2 chemical activation-pyrolysis-carbonization. Different factors such as activated temperature, activators, additives, sludge/activation solution ratio, activated time and other factors which affecting SSAC characteristics were studied to obtain the optimal preparation conditions. The result shows that when using 3mol/L zinc chloride with the ratio of zinc chloride to sulfuric acid as 10:1(v/v), activated at 550°C with the ratio of sludge to activation solution as 1:4(w/v) for 1 hour of pyrolysis and the rate of N2 was set at 0.5L/min, the BET surface area, total pore volume and average pore diameter of the SSAC was 469.80m2/g, 0.16cm3/g and 2.60nm respectively. Using SSAC to treat simulating wastewater containing 100mg(Ni2+)/L, the removal rate of Ni2+ was 20.59% with the adsorption capacity of 10.57mg/g. When the pH>10.5 the removal efficiency approached 100%.