USE OF ACTIVATED CARBONS OBTAINED FROM CARBON WASTE FOR VOC PASSIVE SAMPLER
Project no. 1226 · Status: Kapanmış · 2016
Summary
While air quality is often characterized by the measurement of the concentration of outdoor air pollutants, the quality of workplace atmosphere also affects the health of employees. Therefore, the research on this subject is of great importance. In this thesis, the development of adsorbent for the adsorption of volatile organic compounds (VOC) harmful to human health and its use as a passive sampler has been emphasized. VOC retention capacities of activated carbon and biochar samples obtained from textile wastes have been investegated along with commercial activated carbons as adsorbent by using GC-MS system. Targeted analytes, chosen as toluen, ethyl benzene and xylene from BTEX group of compunds directly injected into a GC-MS system in gas phase under optimized conditions and then, adsorption properties of activated carbon and biochar samples produced from textile wastes have been investigated. The recorded chromatograms have displayed that cotton/polyester char has given the best response for the majority of analytes according to their chromatographic peak areas. Further studies include the calibration construction for all of the targeted analytes. It was revealed that very sensitive analysis can be performed well below the STEL values determined for workplaces including the paint sector. Consequently, the monitoring of VOC levels in workplace atmosphere is of great importance in terms of occupational health and safety. In the light of the data obtained in this study, it can be concluded that adsorbents obtained from wastes can serve as an economic and renewable materials for sensitive and selective analysis by contributing to the literature. Key words: BTEX, Textile wastes, Activated carbon, Biochar, Passive sampler, GC-MS