Adsorption Equilibrium and Fixed Bed Adsorption of Aniline onto Polymeric Resin and Activated Carbons

The adsorption of aniline on several adsorbents including resin Sepabeads SP206 and activated carbons Jacobi and Norit, has been studied. The influence of temperature in the adsorption capacity was obtained by batch method. Langmuir and Bi-Langmuir were the best models to represent the equilibrium sorption isotherm of aniline in the resin and the activated carbons, respectively. Higher adsorption capacity was obtained for both activated carbons than that for resin, being the maximum adsorption capacity three times higher. Nevertheless, the aniline adsorption capacity onto resin is much more influenced by the temperature. The dynamic behavior of aniline onto Sepabeads SP206 resin and activated carbon Jacobi was also studied. Breakthroughs and reverse breakthroughs were carried out in a laboratory-scale column to study the adsorbent regeneration. A Linear Driving Force (LDF) model was used to predict the experiments for the two adsorbents. The results demonstrated that Sepabeads SP206 resin can be easily regenerated by using water, while around 50% of aniline remains adsorbed in the activated carbon. Furthermore, after 4cycles of adsorption-desorption, only around 60% of aniline can be recovered from the activated carbon Jacobi; this behavior can be explained by the aniline that is chemically adsorbed into the activated carbon.