Competitive Adsorption of VOCs and BOM: the Role of Molecular Oxygen

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Abstract
Molecular oxygen further reduced the adsorptive capacity of carbon for the volatile organics studied.In this study, the presence of background organic matter (BOM) was seen to reduce the adsorptive capacity of carbon for chloroform, chlorobenzene, and dibromochloropropane. Adsorption of these compounds was further reduced under oxic conditions. This additional reduction in capacity was likely due to conglomeration of BOM on the carhon surface, which reduced the available surface area for the target volatile organic chemical (VOC). Adsorption isotherms conducted with constant initial concentration ratios of VOC to BOM showed similar behavior. The ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) was found to accurately describe anoxic adsorption isotherms for VOCs in water containing BOM but failed to predict this competition for data collected under oxic conditions.