Sorption of distillery spent wash onto fly ash: kinetics, mechanism, process design and factorial design

Batch and continuous experiments were performed for the sorption of distillery spent wash onto fly ash particles. The Freundlich and pseudo-second order equation were found to fit the equilibrium data perfectly. The Weber-Morris intraparticle diffusion isotherm equation was used to predict the sorption mechanism and the predicted equation for 10% dilution of spent wash sorption is q(t)=1.1344t(0.5)+33.304. The optimization using 2(3) factorial design of experiments provides optimal removal of color of 93% for dilution (5%), dosage of adsorbent (10g) and temperature (293K). The actual color removal at optimal conditions was 92.24%, confirms close to the factorial design results. The complete error analysis using six non-linear error functions: Chi-square (chi(2)); sum of square errors (SSE); composite fractional error function (HYBRD); derivative of Marquardt's percent standard deviation (MPSD); average relative error (ARE); sum of absolute errors (EABS) were calculated. Free energy of adsorption at 293K (DeltaG(0)=-1574.67J), enthalpy change (DeltaH(0)=-32.5487KJ) and entropy change (DeltaS(0)=105J/K) were calculated to predict the nature of adsorption. Adsorption studies in a packed column were evaluated using Bed depth service time model, Thomas model and Adams-Bohart model.