Wastewaters from various types of industries contain different types of phenols. Phenolic compounds are toxic substances and some are known or suspected carcinogens. Therefore it is important to remove phenol and phenolic compounds from contaminated industrial and aqueous streams before discharged into any water bodies. It is well known that adsorption is an efficient method for removal of various pollutants from wastewater. Several adsorbents have been used for treatment of wastewater and removal of phenolic compounds. In the present study, efforts have been made for removal of phenol from aqueous solution using zeolite as an adsorbent. The adsorbent potential was tested on batch synthetic solutions containing 1-5 (mg/L) phenol concentration at room temperature. The influence of solution pH, adsorbent dose, contact time and initial phenol concentration on the removal efficiency of phenol from water was investigated. A 94 % phenol removal efficiency was obtained for an adsorption time of 4 hr at 7 pH and 1 g of adsorbent dose. The experimental data were modeled using the Langmuir, Freundlich isotherms. The Langmuir model was found to best represent our data revealing a monolayer adsorption with a maximum adsorption capacity 1.19 mg/g at 25 °C, for 1 g of adsorbent dose and 5 mg/L initial phenol concentration. The kinetic data were analyzed using pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and intraparticle diffusion model. The results suggested that the phenol adsorption at room temperature was best represented by the pseudo-second-order equation. The study showed that the zeolite can be used as ecofriendly and effective sorbent for the removal of phenol from aqueous solutions.
