Adsorption Isotherms for Naphthalene on Clay and Silt Soil Fractions: A Comparison of Linear and Nonlinear Methods

摘要

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons occur naturally in petroleum oil and coal and the burning of fuel and the activities of paper mills also release these compounds to the environment. Batch experimental adsorption study for both soil fractions was conducted in a soil slurry system at ambient temperature, using <0.02mm particle sizes. Comparison was made of the linear least squares method and a trial-and-error nonlinear method of some widely used isotherm models for the adsorption of naphthalene on clay and silt fractions. The experimental results were fitted to the Langmuir, Freundlich, Radke-Prausnitz, Sips, Temkin and Redlich-Peterson isotherms to obtain their characteristic parameters of each model. The coefficient of determination obtained from the different models using the linear method showed that Freundlich isotherm had the highest values for both clay and silt soil fractions with values of 0.843 and 0.897 respectively. The equilibrium data did not fit the Langmuir isotherm with values of 0.287 and 0.021 for clay and silt soil respectively. Using the nonlinear method the equilibrium data gave good fit for Radke-Prausnitz, Sips, Temkin and Redlich-Peterson isotherms. Sips isotherm gave the best fit for silt soil with the r~2 value of 0.9779 and this was followed by Temkin isotherm for clay soil with the value of 0.9673.