Investigating the effect of carbon shape on virus adsorption

Batch adsorption isotherm and column breakthrough studies were conducted to compare two types of activated carbon with very different structural characteristics; granular Calgon F-400 and an activated carbon fiber composite (ACFC). Carbons were evaluated for virus adsorption capacity using a bacteriophage, MS2. Two mesh fractions of each carbon type were used in batch adsorption studies to determine empirical isotherm coefficients from linear regression analysis. Freundlich isotherm models adequately described MS2 bacteriophage adsorption to both carbon types. Adsorption capacity was found to vary with carbon size for both types of carbon but for different reasons. Although adsorption isotherm capacities would have predicted the GAC carbon to provide better removals than the ACFC, carbon breakthrough column performance for equal weights of material showed virus removal to be markedly more efficient on a gram-to-gram basis for ACFC than for GAC.