Adsorption 3.

1 Introduction
Adsorption process: one or more components of a gas or liquid stream are adsorbed on the surface of a solid adsorbent and a separation is accomplished.
When the bed is almost saturated, The fluid is passed through the bed The solid particles adsorb components from the fluid -the flow in the bed is stopped -the bed is regenerated thermally or by other methods so that desorption occurs The adsorbed material (adsorbate) is thereby recovered and the solid adsorbent is ready for another cycle of adsorption

 Applications:
Liquid-phase adsorption:
Removal of organic compounds from water or organic solutions Removal of colored impurities from organics Removal of various fermentation products from ferementor effluents

Gas-phase adsorption:
Removal of water from hydrocarbon gases Removal of sulfur compounds from natural gas Removal of solvents from air and other gases Removal of odors from air

Physical properties of adsorbents

form Small pellets Beads granules Size: 0.1 mm to 12 mm structure Porous structures Many fine pores Pore volumes up to 50% of total particle volume occurence Adsorption often occurs as a monolayer on the surface of the fine pores Physical adsorption(Van der Walls) occur between the adsorbed molecules and the solid internal pore surface and is readily reversible

Steps of adsorption process

The solute diffuses from the bulk fluid to the gross exterior surface of the particle

The fluid is flowing past the particles in a fixed bed

The solute diffuses inside the pore to the surface of the pore

The solute is adsorbed on the surface

Equilibrium relations for adsorbents

q = K cn

q = qoc K+c

q = Kc

3.2 Batch Adsorption

Batch adsorption often used to adsorb solutes from liquid solutions when the quantities treated are small in amount An equilibrium relation such as the Freundlich or Langmuir isotherm and a material balance are needed. Material balance on the adsorbate is:

Where: qF = initial concentration of the solute adsorbed on the solid q = final equilibrium M = amount of adsorbent, kg S = volume of feed solution, m3

3.3 Design of Fixed-bed Adsorption Columns

The concentrations of the solute in the fluid phase and of the solid adsorbent phase change with time and with position in the fixed bed as adsorption proceeds At the inlet to the bed, the solid is assumed to contain no solute at the start of the process As the fluid first comes in contact with the inlet of the bed, most of the mass transfer and adsorption takes pace here As the fluid passes through the bed, the concentration in this fluid drops very rapidly with distance in the bed and reaches zero well before the end of the bed is reached the concentration profile at the start at time t1 is shown in Fig. 12.3-1a, where the concentration ratio c/co is plotted versus bed length

The fluid concentration co is the feed concentration and c is the fluid concentration at a point in the bed After a short time, the solid near the entrance to the tower is almost saturated, and most of the mass transfer and adsorption now takes place at a point slightly farther from the inlet At a later time t2, the profile or mass-transfer zone where most of the concentration change takes place has moved farther down the bed

The concentration profiles shown are for the fluid phase. Concentration profiles for the concentration on adsorbates on the solid would be similar The solid at the entrance would be nearly saturated, and this concentration would remain almost constant down to the mass-transfer zone, where it would drop off rapidly to almost zero. The dashed line for time t3 shows the concentration in the fluid phase in equilibrium with the solid.

The difference in concentrations is the driving force for mass transfer

Breakthrough concentration curve

Figure 12.3-1 (b) breakthrough concentration profile in the fluid at outlet of bed

the major part of adsorption at any time takes place in a relatively narrow adsorption or MASS TRANSFER ZONE. As the solution continues to flow, this mass-transfer zone, which is S-shaped, moves down the column At a given time t3 in Fig. 12.3-1a, when almost half of the bed is saturated with solute, the outlet concentration is still approximately zero, as shown in Fig. 12.3-1b. This outlet concentration remains near zero until the mass-transfer zone starts to reach the tower outlet at time t4. Then the outlet concentration starts to rise, and at t5 the outlet concentration has risen to cb, which is called the break point.

After the break-point time is reached, the concentration c rises very rapidly up to point cd, which is the end of the breakthrough curve, where the bed is judged ineffective.

The break-point concentration represents the maximum that can be discarded and is often taken as 0.01 to 0.05 for cb/co

The value cd/co is taken as the point where cd is approximately equal to co

For a narrow mass-transfer zone, the breakthrough curve is steep and most of the bed capacity is used at the break point

If the mass-transfer rate were infinitely fast and if no axial dispersion were present, the mass-transfer-zone width would be zero and the breakthrough curve would be zero and the breakthrough curve would be a vertical line from c/co = 0 to c/co = 1.0.