Multielementar Adsorption of Metal Ions Using Tururi Fibers: Experiments, Mathematical Modeling and Numerical Simulation

Abstract

-A numerical and experimental study of the multielementar adsorption of Cd 2+ , Cu 2+ , Ni 2+ and Pb 2+ ions in a batch reactor and fixed-bed column was carried out in aqueous solution at 28 °C, using tururi fibers as the adsorbent. The kinetics and thermodynamic equilibrium parameters were obtained for all metal ions. The adsorption kinetics was fitted to the homogeneous diffusion model, giving good linear correlation coefficients. Furthermore, a mathematical model was built to describe the mass transfer kinetics in a fixed-bed column. The effects of constant adsorption equilibrium, external mass transfer and intra-particle diffusion resistance on breakthrough curves were studied. The equations which describe the phenomenology were discretized using the Finite Volumes Method with the WUDS and CDS formulations. The results for the breakthrough curves obtained through simulation showed good agreement when compared with the experimental data.