Adsorption Properties of Granular Activated Carbon-Supported Titanium Dioxide Particles for Dyes and Copper Ions

In the present paper, granular activated carbon (GAC) supported titanium dioxide (TiO2@GAC) particles were prepared by sol-gel process. Their performance in simultaneous adsorption of dye and Cu2+ from wastewater was studied. X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicated that TiO2 of the TiO2@GAC microsphere is anatase type, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) showed that the samples have obvious characteristic peaks in 400–800 cm−1, which indicated that there are Ti-O-Ti bonds. The experimental results showed that the adsorption of TiO2@GAC for Methylene blue (MB) and Cu2+ were favorable under acidity condition, the adsorption of Methyl orange (MO) was favorable under alkalecent condition. The reaction kinetics of TiO2@GAC for MO, MB and Cu2+ were well described as pseudo-second-order kinetic model; The reaction isotherms for MO, MB and Cu2+ were well fitted by Langmuir model. The maximum adsorption capacity of TiO2@GAC for MO, MB and Cu2+ in the single systems were 32.36 mg/g, 25.32 mg/g and 23.42 mg/g, respectively. As for adsorption, Cu2+ had a suppression effect on MB, and a promotion effect on MO, however, the impact of MO and MB on Cu2+ were negligible.