Analysis of devitalization mechanism and chemical constituents for fast and efficient regeneration of spent carbon by means of ultrasound and microwaves

- The devitalization of spent carbon is analyzed by micro perspective.
- Organic compounds are complicated, both chemical and physical way are found to form various polymerized substance.
- Ultrasound, microwave improveregenerated effectsbecause of precise, quick and selective binding with waste molecule.

The spent carbon that contained kinds of organic compounds was investigated and characterized by techniques of nitrogen adsorption, SEM, FT-IR and Raman, GC-MS and TG-DSC. Results found that the combination forms between amounts of miscellaneous organic compounds and carbon molecules were the molecular force and covalent bond, these combined types mainly caused the devitalization of spent carbon, and they influenced the surface chemistry properties of carbon deeply. GC-MS analysis illustrated that the spent carbon contained organic and inorganic compounds of alkanes, benzenes, ketones, alcohols, sulfide, nitrogen and halogens substituent compounds. Majorities of organic compounds were endothermic through the TG-DSC analysis. For obtaining the faultless-structure carbon, the spent carbon was regenerated by using techniques of ultrasound and microwaves. Regeneration experiment of different types compounds was implementing by stepwise stratificational way. The regeneration carbon's adsorption property was much better than the conventional regeneration technics', the regeneration rate achieved 83%. The BET surface area, total volume and average diameter of regenerated carbon were 1080 m2/g, 2.5 cm3/g and 4.7 nm, respectively, it was much better than spent carbon's.