Study on Active Carbon as Emergency Treatment of Songhua River Polluted by Nitrobenzene

One of China largest river, Songhua River was polluted due to the explosion at a PetroChina factory in Jilin province in 2005. A full scale test was carried out to investigate the removal of nitrobenzene in the raw water from polluted Songhua River. The removal and control effects of nitrobenzene by using Powered Activated Carbon (PAC) absorption and Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) filtration as emergent treatments were studied. The results showed that PAC dosage could change from 30 mg/L to 50 mg/L according to the variation of nitrobenzene concentration in raw water. The dosing point of PAC was at the intake of water source and enough adsorption time could be guaranteed by means of the water transportation pipeline with distance of 11.9 km. Full scale study results showed that the nitrobenzene concentration in intake of water plant was below 0.005 mg/L after 5 hours adsorption by PAC in intake of water source which nitrobenzene concentration was between 0.03~0.35 mg/L.With the GAC filtration as following treatment, nitrobenzene concentration was below 0.001 mg/L in purified water. The combined emergent treatments could be used as a good method for Songhua River pollution.