Irreversible adsorption, experimental profiles

Except for the limiting case of the irreversible isotherm discussed above the prediction of the temperature and concentration profiles requires the simultaneous solution of the coupled differential heat and mass balance equations which describe the system. The earliest general numerical solutions for a nonisothermal adsorption column appear to have been given almost simultaneously by Carter and by Meyer and Weber. These studies all deal with binary adiabatic or near adiabatic systems with a small concentration of an adsorbable species in an inert carrier. Except for a difference in the form of the equilibrium relationship and the inclusion of intraparticle heat conduction and finite heat loss from the column wall in the work of Meyer and Weber, the mathematical models are similar. In both studies the predictive value of the mathematical model was confirmed by comparing experimental nonisothermal temperature and concentration breakthrough curves with the theoretical curves calculated from the model using the experimental equilibrium... 

The general phenomenon of polymer adsorption/retention is discussed in some detail in Chapter 5. In that chapter, the various mechanisms of polymer retention in porous media were reviewed, including surface adsorption, retention/trapping mechanisms and hydrodynamic retention. This section is more concerned with the inclusion of the appropriate mathematical terms in the transport equation and their effects on dynamic displacement effluent profiles, rather than the details of the basic adsorption/retention mechanisms. However, important considerations such as whether the retention is reversible or irreversible, whether the adsorption isotherm is linear or non-linear and whether the process is taken to be at equilibrium or not are of more concern here. These considerations dictate how the transport equations are solved (either analytically or numerically) and how they should be applied to given experimental effluent profile data. 

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