Ns. Abuzaid et G. Nakhla, PREDICTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS SURFACE-DIFFUSION MODEL FOR ACTIVATED CARBON ADSORPTION-KINETICS - FORMULATION OF A NEW MATHEMATICAL-MODEL, Journal of environmental science and health. Part A: Environmental science and engineering, 32(7), 1997, pp. 1945-1961
The predictive capability of the Homogeneous Surface Diffusion Model (
HSDM) for activated carbon adsorption kinetics under different environ
mental conditions is investigated in this study. Experimental studies
conducted at room temperature, neutral pH, with DO concentrations of 0
, 4, 9, and 30 mg/l indicate that the HSDM model describes the anoxic
adsorption much more accurately than the oxic uptake. This pattern is
rationalized as due to the simultaneous adsorption and surface reactio
n in the oxic batches which is unaccounted for in the HSDM model. Furt
hermore, the data reveals that divergence from the model fit increased
with DO concentration with the HSDM model overpredicting the initial
data and underpredicting the latter part of the curve. Kinetic experim
ents performed for phenol and o-cresol at pH values of 3, 7, and 11 sh
ow that HSDM model describes the anoxic data very well, while underpre
dicting the latter part of the curve. Kinetic experiments performed fo
r phenol and o-cresol at pH values of the largest divergence of the ox
ic data from the HSDM model was at neutral pH. On the other hand, when
the aforementioned kinetic experiments were conducted at temperature
values of 8 degrees C, 21 degrees C, and 35 degrees C, the HSDM model
was found to describe the anoxic data very well with the fit improving
with temperature. The fit of the surface reaction-controlled part of
the kinetic curve improved substantially with temperature. A simultane
ous adsorption reaction model is formulated to account for the relativ
ely slow telomerization reactions that impact sorbate uptake kinetics
and equilibria.