Usage of activated carbons to the adsorption of copper from water solutions

Activated carbons adsorb a lot of organic compounds by means of van der Waals forces (with a great efficiency: about 90% of the ones which appear in waters and sewage). It is a proper adsorption, depended on the surface of the accessible pores for the given impurity. On activated carbons there can also be removed some ions eg: heavy metal ones. This is caused by the presence, on activated carbons surface, of oxygen units, which are able to exchange cations and anions. These units are created during carbons production or as the result of their later oxidation. In the paper there were presented the results of copper Cu(II) adsorption on three activated carbons: WG-12, ROW 08 and F-300. The carbon of the highest degree of removing Cu(II) was ROW 08 Supra carbon, which was removing over 83% of copper from the solution of 10 mg/dm(3) in the examined conditions. There was obtained a bit lower degree of removing as the result of using WG-12 carbon (63%), and distinctly the lowest degree was obtained for F-300 carbon (46%). The oxidation of WG-12 activated carbon, in rotary furnace at the temperature of 800 degrees C in the atmosphere of water vapour and carbon dioxide and at 400 degrees C in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, improved considerably the adsorption abilities of the obtained sorbents. The carbon oxidized at 800 degrees C with the usage Of CO(2) removed Cu(II) in over 93%, and with water vapour in over 88%. Only in the case of WG-12 carbon modification, there was not obtained a higher copper adsorption than on the initial carbon.