Author : Saad H. Ammar and Sarah Saeed Abdu-Majeed

In present work, an internal loop concentric tube airlift reactor unit has been designed and constructed to remove phenol from wastewater by adsorption onto commercial activated carbon (experimental reactor with internal tube of 8 cm diameter and 60 cm height while the outer tube was 80 cm height and 12 cm diameter with 6.5 L working volume). The performance of this reactor was evaluated by performing a set of experiments where the percent removal of phenol was studied at different operating variables such as inlet air flow rate, initial concentration of the phenol present in wastewater, contact time, particle size, pH and the activated carbon loading. The results show that the percent removal of phenol from wastewater increase with increasing inlet air flow rate and activated carbons loading, decreasing initial phenol concentration and slightly effected by solution pH and particle size. About 98% removal of phenol was reached in one condition (air flow rate of 12 L/min, pH= 3.5, solid loading=2v% and dp=250-600μm).

Keywords: Airlift reactor, Phenolic wastewater, adsorption, Activated carbon

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.6, No.1 (Feb-2016)