Preparation and characteristics of carbonaceous adsorbents obtained from waste cation-exchange resins

Carbonaceous adsorbents (CA) were prepared by carbonizing waste cation-exchange resins in different temperature and followed by CO2 activation. The results of elementary analysis and FT-IR indicated sulfonic groups in resins inner surface were almost decomposed to heat-resistant sulfone groups after pyrolysis. The BET surface area of CA could achieve 340.1 m2/g. Also, the study of adsorbing phenol in aqueous was carried out. The result showed the adsorption capacity for phenol was about 57.60 mg/g, and there was a good linear correspondence between the adsorption capacity for phenol and BET surface area; in the concentration of phenol ranged from 25.5 mg/L to 600.0 mg/L, adsorption isotherm could be fitted well into Langmuir equation.