Influence of surface modification on catalytic activity of activated carbon toward decomposition of hydrogen peroxide and 2-chlorophenol

The objective of this research was to investigate the influence of the activated carbons modified by chemical treatment on the surface catalyzed loss of H2O2 and 2-CP. The characteristics of the modified activated carbons were examined by several techniques including nitrogen adsorption, SEM, and EDS. The H2O2 decomposition rate would be suppressed significantly either by the change of surface properties modified with chemical treatment or the reduction of active sites occupied with the adsorption of 2-CP. In addition, the H2O2 decomposition rate with activated carbons within a specific time can be described by a second-order kinetic expression with respect to the concentration of GAC and H2O2 in the absence or presence of 2-CP. The catalytic activities of the three activated carbons toward 2-CP reduction followed the inverse sequence of those toward H-2-O-2 loss, implying that acidic surface functional group could retard the H2O2 loss and reduce the effect of surface scavenging resulting in increasing the reduction efficiency of 2-CP. By the detection of chloride ions in reaction mixture, it can be demonstrated that the reduction of 2-CP was not only attributed to the advanced adsorption but also the oxidation of the 2-CP with effective radicals. The real oxidation efficiency of 2-CP for the activated carbon modified with hot nitric acid was observed between 0.04 and 0.01 (mol/mol), offering a comparable efficiency to that of the other oxidation system using metal oxide as catalyst.