Kinetics, equilibrium and thermodynamic studies of adsorption of oil from oil-in-water emulsion by activated charcoal Online publication date: Mon, 19-Dec-2016
by Vinay Kumar Rajak; Hemant Kumar; Ajay Mandal
International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering (IJSURFSE), Vol. 10, No. 6, 2016
Abstract: Studies have been made on the effectiveness of powdered activated charcoal (PAC) for separating oil from oil-in-water emulsion. The present paper deals with the characterisation of oil-in-water emulsion and PAC before and after adsorption. From the BET surface area analysis it was found that the pore volume of activated charcoal after adsorption of oil decreased from 0.573 cc/g to 0.109 cc/g and surface area decreased from 383.016 m²/g to 73.072 m²/g. A maximum 98.8% separation of oil was obtained by adsorption of emulsion onto PAC at optimum condition. From the study of different adsorption isotherm it was found that Freundlich isotherm is the best way to describe the adsorption of oil from oil-water emulsion by PAC. Adsorption of emulsion on PAC follows both pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order kinetic model. Thermodynamic studies indicate that adsorption is feasible, spontaneous and exothermic in nature.
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering (IJSURFSE):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:
Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.
If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com