title: Phenanthrene sorption to Chinese coal: importance of coal's geochemical properties.
abstract: Phenanthrene (Phen) was chosen as the probe compound for determining the sorption of PAHs to a series of different coal samples from China. Based on elemental analysis and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra analysis, coal samples were characterized with different metamorphic evolutional degrees. The experimental sorption data were fitted well by the Freundlich model, suggesting enhanced sorption capacity and strong nonlinearity of coal samples. The combined partition and adsorption model yielded a better fit than the Freundlich isotherm, indicating that adsorption dominated the sorption at low aqueous concentrations. Correlations between coal properties and sorption capacity values indicated that C%, H/C and O/C atomic ratios were the key factors controlling the sorption behavior. Compared to total carbon, BC might play more important role in the sorption of Phen to coal samples. Moreover, there existed nonlinear relationships between combined carbon, aromatic and aliphatic carbon contents and log K(Fr) and n values, respectively, indicating the significance of aromatic and aliphatic carbon in the coal sorption behavior.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, 3663 Zhongshan North Road, Shanghai 200062, China.
authors.forename: Caixia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Minghua
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nie
authors.forename: John L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D002681:China; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D003031:Coal / Q000032:analysis*; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D010616:Phenanthrenes / Q000737:chemistry*; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D003031:Coal; D010616:Phenanthrenes; C031181:phenanthrene