Adsorption of acrylonitrile and methyl acrylate on activated carbon in a packed bed column

Abstract

The adsorption equilibrium and dynamics of acrylonitrile (ACN), methyl acrylate (MA) and the ACN-MA mixture on activated carbon were investigated in a packed bed column at 40∘C. The study indicated that the adsorption isotherms of the pure components belong to the classical Langmuir type; in the case of the binary mixture adsorption, the Ideal Adsorption Solution Theory (IAST) could predict better than the Extended Langmuir (E-L) equation in particular for the MA component. The mass balance equations were established to describe the adsorption dynamic behaviors of the gas phase in the packed bed column, and the linear driving force (LDF) approximation was adopted to estimate the absorbate adsorption kinetics onto the adsorbent. The coupled partial differential equations of the model were numerically solved by the orthogonal collocation (OC) method. The correlated results showed that the model could give an acceptable description of the breakthough curves of the pure ACN and MA in the packed bed column. The prediction of the breakthough curves for the binary CAN-MA system at different inlet concentrations was also implemented, indicating a good agreement with the experimental data.