Ahmedna Mohamed, Marshall Wayne E, Husseiny Abdo A, Rao Ramu M, Goktepe Ipek
Department of Human Environment and Family Sciences, North Carolina A & T State University, Greensboro, NC, USA.
Water Res. 2004 Feb;38(4):1062-8. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2003.10.047.
Filtration of drinking water by point-of-use (POU) or point-of-entry (POE) systems is becoming increasingly popular in the United States. Drinking water is filtered to remove both organic and inorganic contaminants. The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of granular activated carbon from nutshells (almond, English walnut, pecan) in a POU water filtration system to determine its effectiveness in removing select, potentially toxic metal ions, namely, copper (Cu2+), lead (Pb2+) or zinc (Zn2+) found in drinking water. The nutshell-based carbon system was designated "Envirofilter" and was compared to four commercial POU systems with brand names of BRITA, Omni Filter, PUR and Teledyne Water Pik. Eight prototype "Envirofilters", consisting of individual or binary mixtures of carbons made from acid-activated almond or pecan shells and steam-activated pecan or walnut shells were constructed and evaluated for adsorption of the three metal ions. The results indicated that a binary mixture of carbons from acid-activated almond and either steam-activated pecan or walnut shells were the most effective in removing these metals from drinking water of all the POU systems evaluated. Binary mixtures of acid-activated almond shell-based carbon with either steam-activated pecan shell- or walnut shell-based carbon removed nearly 100% of lead ion, 90-95% of copper ion and 80-90% of zinc ion. Overall the performance data on the "Envirofilters" suggest that these prototypes require less carbon than commercial filters to achieve the same metal adsorption efficiency and may also be a less expensive product.
在美国，通过使用点（POU）或进入点（POE）系统对饮用水进行过滤正变得越来越普遍。对饮用水进行过滤以去除有机和无机污染物。本研究的目的是评估在POU水过滤系统中使用坚果壳（杏仁、英国胡桃、山核桃）制成的颗粒活性炭，以确定其在去除饮用水中特定的潜在有毒金属离子，即铜（Cu2+）、铅（Pb2+）或锌（Zn2+）方面的有效性。基于坚果壳的碳系统被命名为“Envirofilter”，并与四个品牌分别为BRITA、Omni Filter、PUR和泰利丹洁碧的商用POU系统进行比较。构建了八个由酸活化杏仁壳或山核桃壳以及蒸汽活化山核桃壳或胡桃壳制成的碳的单独或二元混合物组成的“Envirofilter”原型，并对三种金属离子的吸附情况进行了评估。结果表明，在所有评估的POU系统中，酸活化杏仁壳与蒸汽活化山核桃壳或胡桃壳的碳二元混合物在从饮用水中去除这些金属方面最为有效。酸活化杏仁壳基碳与蒸汽活化山核桃壳基碳或胡桃壳基碳的二元混合物去除了近100%的铅离子、90 - 95%的铜离子和80 - 90%的锌离子。总体而言，“Envirofilter”的性能数据表明，这些原型比商用过滤器需要更少的碳就能达到相同的金属吸附效率，而且可能也是一种成本更低的产品。
