Organic desorption from carbon—III. The effect of solvent in the desorption of phenol from dry carbon

The desorption of phenol from active carbon was studied using a continuous flow desorber. The system used was nearly water free to reduce water-phenol interactions. An attempt to correlate the desorption data with the physical properties of phenol and solvents, in addition to regular solution theory, proved unsuccessful. A thermodynamic approach using the linear free energy-enthalpy relationship produced a general trend by using the heat of solution for phenol in solution and a reasonable correlation using the heat of formation of the phenol-solvent hydrogen bond with the desorption data.