In this paper, the adsorption removal characteristic for 10 species of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) was investigated using GAC and modified GAC (GAC-Cu). After modification with Cu(II), the amount of copper was to 1.93 and 4.73 mg/g for GAC and GAC-Cu, respectively. The total amount of 10 species of PFAS per specific area was obtained to 0.548 and 0.612 ng/m2 for GAC and GAC-Cu, respectively. A series of batch test confirmed lower efficiency was observed with a smaller number of carbon chain length and the removal efficiency of PFCA (perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids) was lower than that of PFSA (perfluoroalkyl sulfonic acids) with the same carbon chain length. Regarding the pH effect, the adsorption capacity was decreased with increase of pH due to the increase of electrostatic repulsion. According to pseudo first and second order (PFO and PSO) kinetic models, while the values of equilibrium uptake and time did not show significant difference, a difference in uptake was observed between 24-48h. Furthermore, based on correlation analysis, Log Kow and uptake have a high correlation with molecular weight (M.W.) and initial concentration, respectively. These results show that long-chain PFAS have higher removal efficiency due to their increased hydrophobicity.

Perfluorooctanoic acid(PFOA) was one of widely used per- and poly substances(PFAS) in the industrial field and its concentration in the surface and groundwater was found with relatively high concentration compared to other PFAS. Since various processes have been introduced to remove the PFOA, adsorption using GAC is well known as a useful and effective process in water and wastewater treatment. Surface modification for GAC was carried out using Cu and Fe to enhance the adsorption capacity and four different adsorbents, such as GAC-Cu, GAC-Fe, GAC-Cu(OH)2, GAC-Fe(OH)3 were prepared and compared with GAC. According to SEM-EDS, the increase of Cu or Fe was confirmed after surface modification and higher weight was observed for Cu and Fe hydroxide(GAC-Cu(OH)2 and GAC-Fe(OH)3, respectively). BET analysis showed that the surface modification reduced specific surface area and total pore volumes. The highest removal efficiency(71.4%) was obtained in GAC-Cu which is improved by 17.9% whereas the use of Fe showed lower removal efficiency compared to GAC. PFOA removal was decreased with increase of solution pH indicating electrostatic interaction governs at low pH and its effect was decreased when the point of zero charges(pzc) was negatively increased with an increase of pH. The enhanced removal of PFOA was clearly observed in solution pH 7, confirming the Cu in the surface of GAC plays a role on the PFOA adsorption. The maximum uptake was calculated as 257 and 345 μg/g for GAC and GAC-Cu using Langmuir isotherm. 40% and 80% of removal were accomplished within 1 h and 48 h. According to R2, only the linear pseudo-second-order(pso) kinetic model showed 0.98 whereas the others obtained less than 0.870.

The adsorption process using GAC is one of the most secured methods to remove of phosphate from solution. This study was conducted by impregnating Cu(II) to GAC(GAC-Cu) to enhance phosphate adsorption for GAC. In the preparation of GAC-Cu, increasing the concentration of Cu(II) increased the phosphate uptake, confirming the effect of Cu(II) on phosphate uptake. A pH experiment was conducted at pH 4-8 to investigate the effect of the solution pH. Decrease of phosphate removal efficiency was found with increase of pH for both adsorbents, but the reduction rate of GAC-Cu slowed, indicating electrostatic interaction and coordinating bonding were simultaneously involved in phosphate removal. The adsorption was analyzed by Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm to determine the maximum phosphate uptake(qm) and adsorption mechanism. According to correlation of determination(R2), Freundlich isotherm model showed a better fit than Langmuir isotherm model. Based on the negative values of qm, Langmuir adsorption constant(b), and the value of 1/n, phosphate adsorption was shown to be unfavorable and favorable for GAC and GAC-Cu, respectively. The attempt of the linearization of each isotherm obtained very poor R2. Batch kinetic tests verified that ~30% and ~90 phosphate adsorptions were completed within 1 h and 24 h, respectively. Pseudo second order(PSO) model showed more suitable than pseudo first order(PFO) because of higher R2. Regardless of type of kinetic model, GAC-Cu obtained higher constant of reaction(K) than GAC.

Chitosan, natural organic polymer, has been applied in water treatment as adsorbent due to non-toxic for human being. The amino group as functional group, can interacts with cation and anion at the same time. The prepared chitosan bead (HCB) was crosslinked to increase chemical stability (HCB-G) and both HCB and HCB-G were prepared to increase physical strength by drying referred to DCB and DCB-G, respectively. The adsorption effect for crosslinking and drying for four types of chitosan bead was tested using pseudo fist order (PFO), pseudo second order (PSO), and intraparticle diffusion model (ID). Regardless of PFO and PSO, the order of K, rate constant, is as followed: HCB > HCB-G > DCB > DCB-G for Cu(II) and phosphate. Drying leading to contraction of bead significantly reduced adsorption rate due to reduce the porosity of chitosan. In addition, crosslingking also negatively effect on adsorption rate. When compared with Cu(II) using hydrogel bead, phosphate showed higher value than Cu(II) for PFO and PSO. The application of ID showed that both hydrogel beads (HCB and HCB-G) obtained a very low R2 ranging to 0.37 to 0.81, while R2 can be obtained to over 0.9 for DCB and DCB-G, indicting ID is appropriate for low adsorption rate.

2 (Langmuir, Freundlich, Elovich, Temkin, and Dubinin-Radushkevich) and 3 (Sips and Redlich-Peterson)-parameter isotherm models were applied to evaluated for the applicability of adsorption of Cu(II) and/or phosphate isotherm using chitosan bead. Non-linear and linear isotherm adsorption were also compared on each parameter with coefficient of determination (R2). Among 2-parameter isotherms, non-linear Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm showed relatively higher R2 and appropriate maximum uptake (qm) than other isotherm equation although linear Dubinin-Radushkevich obtained highest R2. 3-parameter isotherm model demonstrated more reasonable and accuracy results than 2-parmeter isotherm in both non-linear and linear due to the addition of one parameter. The linearization for all of isotherm equation did not increase the applicability of adsorption models when error experiment data was included.

The physical treatment such as chemical precipitation or adsorption was usually added after biological treatment in wastewater treatment process since it was enforced to reduce the concentration of phosphate for wastewater effluent to 0.2 mg/L as P which was well known as one of main nutrient causing eutrophication in waterbody. Therefore, the new material functioned for both adsorption and disinfection was prepared with Fe and Cu, and TiO2, respectively, by changing the ratio of concentration referred to tri-metal (TM). According to SEM-EDS, TiO2 was 30~40% composition for any TM regardless of any synthesis condition. However, the ratio of composition for Fe and Cu was dependent on the initial Fe and Cu concentration, respectively. The removal efficiency of phosphate was obtained to 15% at low initial concentration and the maximum uptake (Q) was calculated to ~11 mg/g through Langmuir isotherm model using TM1 which was synthesized at 1000 mg/L, 1000 mg/L, and 2 g (10 g/L) for Fe(NO3)3, Cu(NO3)2, TiO2, respectively. In disinfection test, the efficiency of virus removal using TM was increased with increase of dosage of TM and can be reached 98% at 0.2 g.

Batch adsorption tests were performed to evaluate the applicability of adsorption kinetic model by using hydrogel chitosan bead crosslinked with glutaraldehyde (HCB-G) for Cu(II) as cation and/or phosphate as anion. Pseudo first and second order model were applied to determine the sorption kinetic property and intraparticle and Boyd equation were used to predict the diffusion of Cu(II) and phosphate at pore and boundary-layer, respectively. According to the value of theoretical and experimental uptake of Cu(II) and phosphate, pseudo second order is more suitable. On comparison with the value of adsorption rate constant (k), phosphate kinetic was 2-4 times faster than that of Cu(II) at any experimental condition indicating the electrostatic interaction between NH3 + and phosphate is dominated at the presence of single component. However, when Cu(II) and phosphate simultaneously exist, the value of k for phosphate was sharply decreased and then the difference was not significant. Both diffusion models confirmed that the sorption rate was controlled by film mass transfer at the beginning time (t < 3 hr) and pore diffusion at next time section (t > 6 hr).

Cu(II) can cause health problem for human being and phosphate is a key pollutant induces eutrophication in rivers and ponds. To remove of Cu(II) and phosphate from solution, chitosan as adsorbent was chosen and used as a form of hydrogel bead. Due to the chemical instability of hydrogel chitosan bead (HCB), the crosslinked HCB by glutaraldehyde (GA) was prepared (HCB-G). HCB-G maintained the spherical bead type at 1% HCl without a loss of chitosan. A variety of batch experiment tests were carried out to determine the removal efficiency (%), maximum uptake (Q, mg/g), and reaction rate. In the single presence of Cu(II) or phosphate, the removal efficiency was obtained to 17 and 16%, respectively. However, the removal efficiency of Cu(II) and phosphate was increased to 50~55% at a mixed solution. The maximum uptake (Q) for Cu(II) and phosphate was enhanced from 11.3 to74.4 mg/g and from 3.34 to 36.6 mg/g, respectively. While the reaction rate of Cu(II) and phosphate was almost finished within 24 and 6 h at single solution, it was not changed for Cu(II) but was retarded for phosphate at mixed solution.