Simulação computacional da adsorção dos poluentes benzeno, tolueno e p-xileno sobre carvão ativado

Abstract

The greatest problems of groundwater and soil contamination are assigned to monoaromatic hydrocarbons which are the most soluble and the most mobile constituents of the fraction of certain substances, such as gasoline. To remove these contaminants, adsorption by activated carbon is the most widely used method, for it presents a significant ability to adsorb organic low molecular weight components, such as benzene, toluene and p-xylene. In this work, we verified the adsorption on activated carbon thereof via computer simulation. As base, we used the postulated model of charcoal prepared by Bourke et al. (2007). Several steps have been completed since the design of the structures of carbon and pollutants to the molecular dynamics phase. For the conformational analysis of the coal’s structure, it was used the semi-empirical method PM3 and for the molecular dynamics technique, the AMBER force field FF99SB. The structure went through a heating at constant pressure until it reaches a final temperature of 298K (25ºC), being its information collected every 50 ps. Subsequently, the structure was submited to equilibrium system at a constant temperature of 298K (25ºC) for 500ps for its information can be analyzed. Finally, the system was then submited to molecular dynamics during 30ns. After analyzing the results, it was found that the ether, lactone and carbonyl (ketone) groups present in the structure of activated carbon provide to it acid feature and because of this and its consequent negative surface charge, adsorption has become viable once the pollutants had positive surface charge, which supports the view that is already known about this type of phenomenon.