“…The PC‐normalized concentrations were thus simulated by means of the following mass balance equations, relative to the liquid [Eqn (2)] and sorbent [Eqn (3)] phases: where C L , PC represents the PC liquid phase concentration, C S , PC the solid‐phase concentration (g PC /g dry resin ), k L a the mass‐transfer coefficient referred to liquid volume (h −1 ), ρ b the sand or resin bulk density (calculated as mass of dry sand or resin divided by the volume of the corresponding column portion; kg m –3 ), ϵ the resin or sand porosity (−), K eq , PC the equilibrium adsorption constant (L kg dry resin –1 ) and D eq the equivalent diffusion coefficient, calculated as α L , resin · v int , resin or α L,sand · v int , sand . K eq , PC and k L a were estimated by best‐fit on the experimental PC concentrations following the Gauss–Newton method, according to the procedure for its application to convection–dispersion problems described previously . The quality of each best‐fit was evaluated by means of the correlation coefficient R 2 as defined previously …”