Adsorption behaviors of hydroquinone onto porous adsorbents

As the toxicity even at low concentrations, pollution of phenolic compounds has become an issue of international concern. Adsorption has been proven to be the effective and widely used method for phenolic compounds removal. In this study, porous resins as adsorbents for the removal of hydroquinone from aqueous solutions were evaluated. Activated carbon F400D was employed for comparison. The faster adsorption kinetic was observed on the mesoporous XAD-4, while the higher adsorption capacity was obtained on the microporous NDA150, which had larger surface area. Despite the different surface properties and pore structures of the studied adsorbents, similar trends of pH-dependent adsorption were observed, implying the importance of the hydroquinone molecular species to the adsorption onto the porous adsorbents. This work provided an understanding of adsorption behavior of hydroquinone on porous adsorbents.