Liquid-phase adsorption of binary components in fixed bed of polymeric adsorbents

Abstract

To investigate performance of fixed bed sorption of a mixture of phenol and para-nitrophenol by polymeric resins, many experimental studies have been performed on fixed bed system. The effects of particle sizes and flow rates on adsorption capacity and breakthrough curves of binary components were investigated. Simplified mathematical description of fixed bed multicompenent sorption was established on the basis of lumping technique for solid diffusion resistance and method to determine maximum concentration of less-adsorbable component was presented and it was estimated effectively on the basis of constant pattern. In case of sorption by Amberlite XAD-4, adsorption capacity and breakthrough curves were not significantly affected by particle size. While in case of sorption by Amberlite IR-45, adsorption capacity was increased when the particle size was reduced. In both cases, adsorption capacity was higher at low flow rate than at high flow rate. It was shown that the effluent concentration of less-adsorbable component rises above the inlet concentration at a certain time. The breakthrough curves increased sharper at low rate than at high flow rate.