(81a) Investigating Liquid Mixture Adsorption Equilibria Using Adsorption NRTL Model

Several organic contaminants such as benzene and its derivatives and inorganic contaminants such as heavy metals are discharged into the water sources which has led to widespread contamination of drinking water. Reliable thermodynamic models are needed for the proper design and optimization of adsorption processes which could help in effective removal of these contaminants. Therefore, we explore the applicability of the recently developed adsorption non-random two-liquid (aNRTL) model for predicting the binary and multicomponent liquid adsorption behavior. The model takes into consideration the adsorbate-adsorbent interactions and correctly predicts the negative deviations from ideality for various binary liquid adsorption mixtures. With only a single binary interaction parameter per adsorbate-adsorbate pair, the model can successfully correlate various binary liquid adsorption systems on several kinds of adsorbents. The model should be a simple yet robust engineering tool for the proper design and operation of an adsorption system by accurately predicting the multicomponent adsorption behavior.