Adsorption characteristics of bisphenol A onto carbonaceous materials produced from wood chips as organic waste.

Many organic by-products have been discharged by humans, and the development of technology for recycling organic by-products has attracted much interest. In this paper, the techniques for producing carbonaceous adsorbents from an organic by-product and an application to remove endocrine disruptors are described. Wood chips as an organic by-product were carbonized at 873 to 1073 K. The iodine adsorption capacity of the obtained carbonaceous materials increased with increasing carbonization temperature. The amount of bisphenol A adsorbed on the carbonized materials produced from Sugi and Hinoki at a 1073 K carbonization temperature was higher than that of activated carbon. The Freundlich constant, 1/N, of the carbonaceous materials produced from Sugi chips, Sugi sawdust, and Hinoki sawdust was similar to that of the activated carbon. This result indicated that the affinity between bisphenol A and the carbonaceous materials or the activated carbon was similar. Their Freundlich constant, K, was greater than that of the activated carbon. Hence, bisphenol A could be efficiently removed by the carbonaceous materials.