Engineering and Technology Journal

Flue gas desulfurization process has been studied using granular activated carbon in bubbling fluidized bed reactor. For the sake of comparison, fixed bed configuration has been also studied at the same operating conditions. The effect of temperature 30 . T . 80 oC, inlet SO2 concentration 500 . Co . 2000 ppm, and flue gas flow rate 2.5 .
Q . 30 ./min were investigated. The results showed that the SO2 removal efficiency increases with increasing reaction temperature up to 80 oC. Also, it was noted that the removal efficiency decreases with increasing the inlet SO2 concentration within the range of temperatures studied. The effect of flue gas flow rate on the desulfurization
activity was in two ways; an increase in the removal efficiency with increasing gas flow rate was observed below flow rate = 7.5 ./min, while a decrease in the efficiency was observed upon any increment in the gas flow rate beyond the 7.5 ./min. The results of fluidized bed reactor were used to obtain an empirical correlation and the experimental results were well correlated with the proposed form
with a correlation coefficient, (R) =0.989. A reaction rate equation was proposed for the oxidative desulfurization and the activation energy was obtained using differential analysis of integral reactor technique. The resulted value of apparent activation energy was 2.981 kJ/mol.

The effective removal of heavy metal ions from water is among the most
important issues for many industrialized countries. The present work has been
carried out to study the adsorption of cobalt [II] ion using activated carbon.
The removal of cobalt ions was investigated in batch conditions. The influence of
initial cobalt ion concentration, pH, adsorbent dose, adsorbent practical size;
contact time and shaking rate were studied at room temperature. The analysis of
residual Co [II] ions was determined using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer
GBC 933 plus. The results showed that the percentage adsorption of activated
carbon increases with time and that maximum adsorption was obtained within the
first 60 minutes of the process, and 300 rpm shaking rate.
The experiments showed that the maximum % adsorption of 100% was obtained
at adsorbent dose=0.4 gm, pH=13, particle size= (0-75) μm and 10 mg/L of initial
concentration of cobalt. These results indicate that activated carbon has potential
for removing cobalt ions from water.

The main objective of the present work is to investigate the
feasibility of using a slurry of fine activated carbon particles,
dp<1mm, in a fixed bed reactor for the removal of sulfur dioxide
from simulated flue gas (air, SO2) stream. A mathematical model
governing the desulfurization process was proposed. The partial
differential equations which describe the adsorption of SO2 from a
moving gas stream to the sorbent bed were solved using a finite
difference method. The kinetic parameters of the mathematical
model were obtained from a series of experimental desulfurization
runs carried out at isothermal conditions and different operating
conditions; bed temperature (333K-373K), initial SO2 concentration
(500ppm-2000ppm) and static bed height (10cm-24cm). The results
showed that the use of fine activated carbon particles improved the
removal efficiency to about 97%. The verification of the simulation
and experimental results showed that the proposed model gave a
good description of the desulfurization process with 95% confidence
level

The adsorption of lead and copper ions onto granular activated carbon (DARCO
20-40 mesh) in a single component system has been studied using fixed bed adsorbers.
A film-pore diffusion model has been developed to predict the fixed bed breakthrough
curves for the two metal ions. This model takes account both external and internal
mass transfer resistance as well as axial dispersion with non-linear isotherm. The
effects of flow rate, bed height and initial metal ion concentration has been studied.
Batch adsorber experiments were conducted to estimate the parameters required for
fixed bed model, such as adsorption equilibrium isotherm constants the external mass
transfer coefficient and pore diffusion coefficient by fitting the experimental data with
theoretical model. The batch isotherm experimental data was correlated using
Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. The adsorption isotherm data follow the
Langmuir model better than Freundlich model. The pore diffusion coefficient was
obtained using pore diffusion model for batch adsorber by matching between the
experimental data and predicted data from the model. The results show that the filmpore
diffusion model used for fixed bed adsorber provide a good description of the
adsorption process for adsorption of metal ions Pb(II) and Cu(II) onto activated carbon
in fixed bed adsorber.