Active carbon as emergency treatment of Songhua River polluted by nitrobenzene

One of China's largest river, the Songhua River, was polluted due to the explosion at a PetroChina factory in Jilin province in 2005. Large amounts of nitroaromatic compounds were flown into the river and polluted the water. A full-scale test was carried out to investigate the removal of nitrobenzene in the raw water from the polluted Songhua River. The removal and control effects of nitrobenzene by using powered-activated carbon (PAC) absorption and granular-activated carbon (GAC) filtration as emergent treatments were studied. The jar test results showed that the adsorption equilibrium time was 40mins for the adsorption of nitrobenzene by PAC which followed the first-order reaction kinetics model. The optimal dosage was changed from 30mg/L to 50mg/L according to the variation of nitrobenzene concentration in raw water. The full test results showed that when the dosing point of PAC was at the intake of the water source, enough adsorption time could be guaranteed by means of the water transportation pipeline with distance of 11.9km. The nitrobenzene concentration in the intake of the water plant was below 0.005mg/L after five hours adsorption by PAC dosing in raw water where nitrobenzene concentration was between 0.03∼0.25mg/L during the pollution period. With the GAC filtration as the following treatment, nitrobenzene concentration was below 0.001mg/L in purified water. The combined emergent treatments could be used as an effective and quick method for Songhua River pollution treatment.