Kinetic research of quinoline, pyridine and phenol adsorption on modified coking coal

Adsorption is widely used in wastewater treatment. In this work, the removal of quinoline, pyridine and phenol from coking wastewater by using modified coking coal, which was treated by four different modification methods i.e. acidification sodium hydroxide (5 mol/dm3), hydrochloric acid (5 mol/dm3) and acetic acid (5 mol/dm3) and low-temperature (105 oC) oxidation, was investigated. The modified coal was characterized by the surface area analysis, SEM, total acidity and basicity and FT-IR. The results showed that the surface area from high to low follows the order: modification with acetic acid, modification with hydrochloric acid, raw coal, modification with sodium hydroxide and modification with low-temperature. Experimental data were fitted to pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and intra-particle diffusion. The adsorption of all followed pseudo-second-order kinetics. The result showed that the removal efficiency of coal modified by hydrochloric acid and acetic acid are higher than raw coal, while modified by sodium hydroxide and low-temperature are lower than raw coal., The coal modified by hydroxide acid had the best adsorption capacity.