Ethanol adsorption uptake and kinetics onto waste palm trunk and mangrove based activated carbons

Abstract

Equilibrium adsorption uptake and kinetics of ethanol onto highly porous activated carbons (ACs) derived from two types of biomass namely waste palm trunk (WPT) and mangrove (M) have been experimentally measured at adsorption temperatures ranging from 30 to 70°C for various evaporation pressures. A magnetic suspension adsorption measurement unit has been used for the experimental measurements. Four well-known adsorption isotherm models have been employed to fit the experimental data whilst two classical adsorption kinetics models i.e. Linear driving force (LDF) model and Fickian diffusion (FD) model are used to predict the experimental kinetics data. Among the four isotherm models Dubinin Astakhov (D-A), and Tóth equations agree well with the experimental uptake data for both ACs. The diffusion time constants are calculated at each adsorption temperature for WPT-AC/ethanol and M-AC/ethanol pairs. Moreover, activation energy and pre-exponential constant have been determined from the Arrhenius equation.