Application in fixed bed systems of adsorbents obtained from chitosan and oil palm ash

Abstract

The adsorption of Reactive Blue 19 from aqueous solutions onto cross-linked chitosan/oil palm as composite beads in fixed beds was investigated. Experiments were carried out as a function of liquid flow rate, initial RBI 9 concentration and bed depth. The bed capacities were found to increase with decreasing flow rate. It was found the bed capacities was 297.9, 245.3 and 171.1 mg/g at 5, 10 and 15 mUmin, respectively. However, the maximum bed capacities were found to increase with increasing flowrate and initial concentration. The Boharts and Adam, Yoon and Nelson, and Thomas models were applied to investigate the breakthrough behaviour of these RBI 9 aye onto cross-linked chitosan/oil palm ash composite beads. These studies show that the fixed bed adsorption of a RBI9 aye using cross-linked chitosan/oil palm ash composite beads was experimentally and theoretically best presented by Thomas model with values of e% < 1.4.