Furfural removal from refinery wastewater by adsorption

Furfural is a toxic aromatic aldehyde that can cause a severe environmental problem especially the wastewater drown from petroleum refinery units. In the present work, a useless by-product from local furniture manufacturing industry sawdust was utilized as precursor for preparation of activated carbon (PAC) which is chemically activated with phosphoric acid. The preparation conditions were reported as temperature 500oC, under the influence of nitrogen flow (100 ml ∕ min) for 2 hr, with impregnation ratio of 0.5 and the production yield was 44% using sawdust with particle size ranges (2.4- 4.8) mm. In the present work, the surface area for PAC and CAC were 793 and 800 m2 /g, respectively. While the pore volume were 0595 and 0.659 m3 /g for PAC and CAC, respectively. The characterization analysis were done using Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to determine the type of functional group and the nature of their surface, respectively.