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 purposes of this paper were to monitor the temperature rising courses and spark discharge of the modified granular activated carbon (GAC) by microwave (MW) irradiation and to evaluate absorption of benzene. The GAC coated on SiO2, boron, talc, ferrite was named as the modified GAC. Thermal and spark discharge measurement of virgin GAC and modifed GAC has been carried out using a MW device operating at 2450 MHz under various energy conditions. The results of this paper as follows. First, the modified GAC is more efficient than the virgin GAC in temperature control. Temperature gradient of the modified GAC is more lower than that of virgin GAC. The temperature gradient of GAC was observed in the following order : virgin GAC, Mn-Zn ferrite/GAC, Ni-Zn ferrite,/GAC, SiO2/GAC, Boron/GAC, Talc/GAC. Second, the spark discharge of the modified GAC was diminished, compared with that of virgin GAC. Because of its excellent electrical insulating properties, the coating material prevents the spark discharge. Finally, the benzene adsorption capacity of the modified GAC decreased due to diminishing of adsorption site by the coating material. Considering the temperature gradient and spark discharge of GAC, the GAC coated SiO2 would be appropriate absorbent under irradiation of MW.