ADSORPTIVE REMOVAL OF PHENOL BY ACTIVATED CARBON: MODELING STUDIES

Abstract

Phenol is a target pollutant to be removed from waste waters from different industries because of its toxicity. The kinetic behavior of a fixed-bed adsorber can be explained and the characteristic break through curve for the adsorption of phenol in waste water onto Activated Carbon can be obtained through mathematical models. Langmuir isotherm model is used to fit the equilibrium data. The proposed mathematical model for fixed-bed adsorption is solved by Explicit Finite difference technique followed by implementing a computer algorithm in MATLAB. And results are compared with experimental data in literature. The effects of important and influencing parameters such as flow rate, particle radius, inlet adsorbate concentration, bed height are studied.