Thermodynamic studу of ethyl alcohol sorption on activated petroleum coke

Abstract

The low-quality petcoke do not find qualified application and is stockpiled at refineries or used as solid fuel. One of the promising uses of low-quality petroleum coke is its physical or chemical activation in order to obtain a highly porous carbon material that can be used as a catalyst carrier, adsorbent, the basis for capacitive electrodes etc. In this work the possibility of using petroleum coke to produce sorbent for organic compounds was studied. The activated petroleum cake was obtained by chemical activation with KOH, and had a specific surface area of 1218 m2/g. Sorption of ethyl alcohol was studied at temperatures 285, 293, and 300 K. It is a physical process, proceeds mainly in pores of activated petroleum coke. Sorption can be described as a reversible exothermic process. The effective Gibbs energy at a temperature of 293 K is -2.75 kJ/mol. The heat of sorption is -25.65 kJ/mol. The obtained data confirm that porous carbon material obtained from petroleum coke can be used as sorbent for ethanol at room temperature. For example, for adsorption of bioethanol from the effluent of the fermentation process or for purification of wastewater from organic compounds.