I am looking to use activated carbon beads as a biofilm media for water treatment. Do you know if activated carbon leaches Phosphorus into the water? Are there any other chemical changes associated with activated carbon in water (e.g., I know that it tends to raise the pH)?
Any advice on this would be much appreciated.
Best,
Jack
An interesting paper appeared in Research Gate some time ago. You can contact the RG colleague for further information. My regards.
Article The impact of activated carbon on NO3−-N, NH4+-N, P and K le...
It truly depends upon the type of activated carbon that the beads are made of. AC can be made from any carbonaceous material including coal, coconut, and other biomass. It can be thermally activated or chemically activated. You can expect plenty of phosphorous leaching from AC that has been chemically activated with phosphoric acid, a common activating agent used for wood carbons. This leaching can be minimized by water washing your carbon to remove water-soluble forms of phosphorous. If you're worried about interference from leachables, you may want to identify the problematic compounds and quantify their levels in solution after a desired contact time with the carbon.
Dr. Lee,
Analyzing and pretreatment of the AC you are going to use is very important, as Dr. O'Brien indicated. What I like to say is that you can choose the pretreatment method based on the way you are going to use the pretreatment byproduct. For example, you can use NaOH, KOH, Na2CO3 or K2CO3 solution. The byproducts you get with this type of methods can directly be used as fertilizers in agriculture. We used this method in the past.
Good Luck!
Maohong Fan