REMOVAL OF O,M,P-XYLENE FROM AIR SAMPLES ON OXIDIZED CARBON NANOTUBES CARTRIDGES

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been considered as an excellent adsorbent in environmental engineering, especially for treatment of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The paper presents a new approach for the selective adsorption of Xylene isomers from air samples using nanomaterial based on oxidized multiwalled carbon nanotubes. In the first study, the functionalization of two oxidized MWCNTs was achieved with hydrogen peroxide and sodium hypochlorite. The characterization of functionalized CNTs (CNT-NaOCl, CNT-H2O2) was performed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-Ray diffractometer (XRD). Afterthat, the applications of pristine CNTs and oxidized CNTs for removal of three Xylene isomers from air samples were discussed. The results demonstrate that the correlation of CNTs and three isomers was significantly different with an affinity order o-Xylene > m-Xylene > p-Xylene. The oxidized CNTs with carbonyl groups increased significantly its adsorption capacity for these isomers. A comparison in term of adsorption performance shows that the framework distinguishes among these adsorbents due to the dispersive properties and the electrostatic interaction between the Xylene isomers and oxidized CNTs surface.