Role of Surface Chemistry in the Reactive Adsorption on Activated Carbons

5 ROLE OF SURFACE CHEMISTRY IN THE REACTIVE ADSORPTION ON ACTIVATED CARBONS 

Another well-known system where snrface chemistry was found crucial for removal of pollutants is adsorption of sulfur dioxide. Besides having a certain distribution of pore sizes, carbons for this purpose should be rich in surface basic groups [323-325], They are able to specifically attract sulfur dioxide molecules and thus increase the total capacity of carbons for their removal. 

Functional groups are also important in the removal of transition metals from various enviromnents [23,24], They provide sites for cation-exchange reactions, which is the main mechanism by which those metals are retained on carbon surfaces. On the other hand, heavy metal removal is governed by the strong affinity of sulfur to form complexes with those species [130,132,160], 

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