Adsorption Kinetics of Ethyl Mercaptan Found in Commercially Available LPG in UAE

摘要

The kinetics of adsorption of ethyl mercaptan, found in commercially available LPG, on different adsorbents, namely Zeolite, ZnO and house made date pits activated carbon (DP-AC) have been studied. The bed capacity was determined using two adsorbents weights, namely 0.2 and 0.3 g, at different LPG flow rates in the range of 35 to 90 ml min-1. It was found that the capacity of DP-AC and Zeolite did not change with the flow rate due to their much larger micropore volumes and smaller average pores sizes, compared to ZnO. The capacity of DP-AC did not even change with the amount of adsorbate used. Two kinetics models, namely Adam's-Bohart and Yoon-Nelson, were used to fit the experimental data and compared to the first order model. The first order and Adam's-Bohart models did not present the experimental data fairly well, and only the Yoon-Nelson model was able to mimic the sigmoidal trend of the breakthrough curves. The goodness of the fitting of the Yoon-Nelson model was also reflected on the values of the coefficient of determination R2, which was much closer to 1.0 compared to that of the other model. The developed models can be used in designing and scaling-up of fixed-bed adsorption columns.