Suda IttisupornratDoungkamon PhihusutDuangta KitkaewSirirat SangkarakAthit PhetrakChulalongkorn UniversityMahidol UniversityEnvironmental Research and Training Center2020-01-272020-01-272019-10-15Journal of Environmental Management. Vol.248, (2019)10958630030147972-s2.0-85069892206https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/50894© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Magnetic powdered activated carbon (Mag-PAC) was successfully developed and applied as an adsorbent for dissolved organic matter (DOM) removal from the effluent of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) using batch experiments. The results show that a coating of iron oxide particles is consistently distributed on the surface of powdered activated carbon (PAC), resulting in a decrease in the specific surface area and in the pH at the point of zero charge, even though the particle sizes of Mag-PAC and PAC were similar. A Mag-PAC dosage of 4 g/L exhibited efficient and fast DOM adsorption with a relatively short contact time of 5 min. The iron oxide coating on the surface of PAC may play an important role in the DOM removal efficiency. Temkin isotherm and pseudo-second order kinetic models well described the DOM adsorption, suggesting that the adsorption of DOM onto Mag-PAC could be mainly governed by a chemisorption mechanism. Humic acid- and fulvic acid-like compounds and aromatic DOM with molecular weights (MWs) between 2610 Da and 3030 Da were efficiently removed by Mag-PAC, whereas aromatic DOM with an MW of 1760 Da was poorly removed. Our results demonstrate that the application of Mag-PAC for DOM adsorption is attractive and yields benefits as a posttreatment system for MBR effluent due to its efficient and fast DOM adsorption.Mahidol UniversityEnvironmental ScienceArticleSCOPUS10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.109314