Mass transfer phenomena of gaseous hydrocarbons and nitrogen dioxide across gas-inorganic pigments boundaries

Abstract

Reversed-flow gas chromatography was used to study the kinetics of the action of five hydrocarbons namely, ethane, ethene, ethyne, propene and butene and of the nitrogen dioxide, on three known and widely used pigments, the white one TiO2, and the yellows CdS and PbCrO4. The calculation of kinetic parameters and mass transfer coefficients is based on an experimental adsorption isotherm. All these calculations are based on a non linear adsorption isotherm model as it is well accepted that the linear one is inadequate for inorganic substances like these mentioned in this work. The inadequacy is mainly attributed to the non-uniformity of the solid surface. Five physicochemical parameters have been obtained for each of the twenty heterogeneous reactions studied. With these systematic experiments under conditions which are similar to the atmospheric ones, an extrapolation of the results obtained to “real" atmospheres with a high degree of confidence is possible. Some of the calculations were based on the linear model for comparison.