• Journal of Korea Soil Environment Society
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.109-118
• /
• 1999

Recently, transport parameters of conservative solutes such as KCl in a porous medium have been successfully determined using time domain reflectometry (TDR) . This study was initiated to Investigate the applicability of TDR technique to monitoring the fate of a heavy metal ion in a sandy soil and the distribution of its concentration along travel distance with time. A column test was conducted in a laboratory that consists of monitoring both resident and flux concentrations of $ZnCl_2$in a sandy soil under a breakthrough condition. A tracer of $ZnCl_2$(10 g/L) was injected onto the top surface of the sample as pulse type as soon as a steady-state condition was achieved. Time-series measurements of resistance and electrical conductivity were performed at 10 cm and 20 cm of distances from the inlet boundary by horizontal-positioning of parallel TDR metallic rods and using an EC-meter for the effluent exiting the bottom boundary respectively. In addition. Zn ions of the effluent were analyzed by ICP-AES. Since the mode and position of concentration detected by TDR and effluent were different, comparison between ICP analysis and TDR-detected concentration was made by predicting flux concentration using CDE model accommodating a decay constant with the transport parameters obtained from the resident concentrations. The experimental results showed that the resident concentration resulted in earlier and higher peak than the flux concentration obtained by EC-meter, implying the homogeneity of the packed sandy soil. A close agreement was found between the predicted from the transport parameters obtained by TDR and the measured $ZnCl_2$concentration. This indicates that TDR technique can also be applied to monitoring heavy metal concentrations in the soil once that a decay constant is obtained for a given soil.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.48 no.6
• /
• pp.768-775
• /
• 2010

Adsorption dynamics of ethane/ethylene mixture gas and desorption dynamics during the displacement desorption with propane as a desorbent in the column filled with faujasite adsorbent were investigated experimentally and theoretically. The simulation that adopted heat and mass balance and an ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) for the multicomponent adsorption equilibrium well predicted the experimental breakthrough curves of the adsorption and desorption. At the adsorption breakthrough experiments, roll-ups of ethane increased as the adsorption pressure increased and the adsorption temperature decreased. During the displacement desorption with propane in the column saturated with ethane/ethylene mixture gas, almost 100% of ethylene was obtained for a certain time interval. The adsorption strength of the desorbent greatly affected the adsorption and re-adsorption dynamics of ethylene. The re-adsorption capacity for ethylene has been greatly reduced when iso-propane, which is stronger desorbent than propane, was used as desorbent. It was found from the simulation that the performance of the displacement desorption process would be superior when the ratio of ${(q_s{\times}b)}_{C_2H_4}/{(q_s{\times}b)}_{C_3H_s}$ was 0.83, that is, the adsorption strengths of ethylene and the desorbent were similar.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Groundwater Environment
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.95-100
• /
• 1999

Hydrocarbon compounds in vadose zone soils caused by adsorption onto the surfaces of solid particles are generally considered to show retardation effect. In this study, we investigated the retardation effect on the transport of Benzene in a sandy soil by conducting batch and column tests. The batch test was conducted by equilibrating dry soil mass with Benzene solutions of various initial concentrations. and by analyzing the concentrations of Benzene in initial and equilibrated solutions using HPLC. The column test consisted of monitoring the concentrations of effluent versus time known as a breakthrough curve (BTC). We used KCl and Benzene solutions with the concentration of 10 g/L and 0.88 g/L as a tracer, and injected them into the inlet boundary of the soil sample as a square pulse type respectively, and monitored the effluent concentrations at the exit boundary under a steady state condition using an EC-meter and HPLC. From the batch test, we obtained a distribution coefficient assuming that a linear adsorption isotherm exists and calculated the retardation factor based on the bulk density and porosity of the column sample. We also predicted the column BTC curve using the retardation factor obtained from the distribution coefficient and compared with the measured BTC of Benzene. The results of the column test showed that i) the peak concentration of Benzene was much smaller than that of KCl and ⅱ) the travel times of peak concentrations for the two tracers were more or less identical. These results indicate that adsorption of Benzene onto the sand panicles occurred during the pulse propagation but the retardation of Benzene caused by adsorption was not present in the studied soil. Comparison of the predicted with the measured BTC of Benzene resulted in a poor agreement due to the absence of the retardation phenomenon. The only way to describe the absolute decrease of Benzene concentration in the column leaching experiment was to introduce a decay or sink coefficient in the convection-dispersion equation (CDE) model to account for an irreversible sorption of Benzene in the aqueous phase.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.32 no.1
• /
• pp.36-43
• /
• 2022

Breakthrough analysis has widely been explored for the dynamic separation of gaseous mixtures in porous materials. In general, breakthrough experiments measure the components of a flowing gas when a gaseous mixture is injected into a column filled with an adsorbent material. In this paper, we report on the design and fabrication of a breakthrough curve measurement device to study the dynamic adsorptive separation of hydrogen isotopologues in porous materials. Using the designed system, an experiment was conducted involving a 1:1 mixture of hydrogen and deuterium passed through a column filled with zeolite 13X (1 g). At room temperature, both hydrogen and deuterium were adsorbed in negligible amounts; however, at a temperature of 77 K, deuterium was preferentially adsorbed over hydrogen. The selectivity was different from that in the existing literature due to the different sample shapes, measurement methods, and column structures, but was at a similar level to that of cryogenic distillation (1.5).

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.49-56
• /
• 2001

Benzene, one of the aromatic hydrocarbons, can be degraded by physical, chemical and biological processes in aquifers. This study aimed at analyzing separately the three different forms of degradation by performing column tests. Column tests using KCl and benzene as tracers were conducted for four different cases: 1) no hydrogen peroxide and no microorganism, 2) hydrogen peroxide only; 3) microorganism only; 4) hydrogen peroxide and microorganism to investigate the sorption and degradation of benzene. The observed BTCs of KCl and benzene in all cases showed that the arrival times of the peaks of both tracers coincided well but the peak concentration of benzene was much lower than that of KCl. This reveals that a predominant process affecting the transport of benzene in a sandy soil is an irreversible sorption and/or degradation rather than retardation. Decay of benzene through sorption and degradation increased with the addition of hydrogen peroxide and/or microorganism. Dissolved oxygen decreased with the increase of benzene in all cases indicating that degradation of benzene was also influenced by dissolved oxygen. For BTCs with the addition of microorganisms (case 3 and case 4), microorganism showed much lower concentrations compared to the initial levels and an increasing tendency with time although concentrations of benzene returned to zero, indicating a possible retardation of microorganism due to reversible and irreversible sorption to the particle surfaces.

• Resources Recycling
• /
• v.15 no.3 s.71
• /
• pp.66-73
• /
• 2006

Continuous column adsorption experiments have been conducted fur artificial and actual wastewater which containing $Ni^{2+}$ by using manganese nodule as an adsorbent for the purpose of wastewater treatment along with an increased $Ni^{2+}$ recovery in the refining of manganese nodule. The adsorption features of $Ni^{2+}$ artificial wastewater were examined by taking the height of fixed bed, influent flow rate, and the initial concentration of adsorbate as the influential parameters. The adsorption capacity of manganese nodule and the rate constant for $Ni^{2+}$ adsorption were estimated employing Bohart-Adams equation. In addition, the variation of the adsorbed amount of adsorbate for each column according to the influent flow rate and the initial concentration of adsorbate was investigated based on the breakthrough curves fur each column. For serially connected columns, the adsorbed amount of $Ni^{2+}$ for each column was observed to increase gradually as the adsorption proceeded from the initial column to the final column. The variation of the breakthrough curve for actual wastewater with the height of fixed bed was not so significant as that for artificial wastewater, which was considered to be due to the high concentration of $Ni^{2+}$ in actual wastewater. Regarding the effect of the particle size of manganese nodule on adsorption, the adsorbed amount of adsorbate was found to somewhat increase as the particle size became smaller.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.113-122
• /
• 2007

In this study, uranium migration experiments have been performed using a natural groundwater and a granite core with natural fractures in a glove-box constructed to simulate an appropriate subsurface environment. Groundwater flow experiments using the non-sorbing anionic tracer Br were carried out to analyze the flow properties of groundwater through the fracture of the granite core. The result of the uranium migration experiment showed a breakthrough curve similar to that of the non-sorting Br. This result may imply that uranium migrates as anionic complexes through the rock fracture since uranium can form carbonate complexes at a given groundwater condition. The distribution coefficient $K_d$ of the uranium between the groundwater and the fracture filling material was obtained as low as 2.7 mL/g from a batch sorption experiment. This result agrees well with the result from the migration experiment, showing a faster elution of the uranium through the rock fracture. In order to analyze retardation properties of the uranium through the rock fracture, the retardation factor $R_d({\sim}16.2)$ was obtained by using the $K_d$ obtained from the batch sorption experiment and it was compared with the $R_d({\sim}14.3)$ obtained by using the result from the uranium migration experiment. The values obtained from the both experiments were very similar to each other. This reveals that the retardation of the uranium is mainly occurred by the fracture filling material when the uranium migrates through the fracture of a granite core.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.31 no.11
• /
• pp.1025-1032
• /
• 2009

This study investigated a possibility to develop an adsorption process for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of the solvent emitted during dry cleaning. Pitch activated carbon fiber (ACF) was chosen as an adsorbent of VOCs, and an electric swing adsorption process was utilized for the reproduction of the adsorbent after the completion of VOCs adsorption. Effects of ACF types and several solvents such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and toluene were examined on breakthrough curves and amounts of adsorbed VOCs. ACF was pretreated under various conditions in order to enhance the amounts of the adsorbed VOCs. Temperatures and voltages were measured for the reproduction of the ACF after full adsorption. ACF having micropores exhibited high adsorption of TCE, and high surface area of ACF could increase the adsorption property of toluene. In general, ACF could adsorb 41~54% TCE of the adsorbent weight. The increase of inlet VOCs concentration significantly decreased the breakthrough time and slightly lowered the amounts of adsorbed VOCs. Thus, ACF could effectively adsorb VOCs in low concentration in the feed stream. ACF pretreated by heat under vacuum showed excellent toluene adsorption with controlling oxygen functional groups on the ACF surface, which revealed that vacant carbon site could be the adsorption point of toluene. Most adsorbed toluene was desorbed at $150^{\circ}C$.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.237-243
• /
• 2018

The surface chemistry of WCK-AC, WCN-AC and WCZ-AC which are activated carbons prepared from waste citrus peel using KOH, NaOH, and $ZnCl_2$ as activating chemicals were investigated. Also the relationships between the adsorption capacities of the target gases such as acetone, benzene and methyl mercaptan (MM) by the prepared activated carbons and the pore characteristics of each activated carbon were examined. According to XPS analysis of the prepared activated carbons, graphite and phenolic were the main surface functional groups of C1, and the sum of phenol, carbonyl and carboxyl groups increased in the order of WCK-AC > WCN-AC > WCZ-AC. The breakthrough curves obtained from the adsorption experiments for the three target gases in the fixed bed adsorption reactor were well simulated by the empirical equations proposed by Yoon and Nelson. The adsorption capacity for acetone, benzene and MM was larger for activated carbons with the larger sum of surface functional groups. The larger the specific surface area and the pore volume of activated carbons and the smaller the pore size, the better the adsorption performance. In particular, the specific surface area was the best criterion for the adsorption performance of activated carbons used in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Groundwater Environment
• /
• v.5 no.3
• /
• pp.155-161
• /
• 1998

Retardation effect of heavy metals in soils caused by adsorption onto the surfaces of solids particles is well known phenomenon. In this study, we investigated the retardation effect on the mobility of a Zn in a sandy soil by conducting batch and column tests. The column test consisted of monitoring the concentrations of effluent versus time known as a breakthrough curve (BTC). We used NaCl and ZnCl$_2$ solutions with the concentration of 10 g/L as a tracer, and injected them respectively into the inlet boundary of the soil sample as a square pulse type, and monitored the effluent concentrations at the exit boundary under a steady state condition using an EC-meter and ICP-AES. The batch test was conducted based on the standard procedure of equilibrating fine fractions collected from the soil with various initial ZnCl$_2$ concentrations, and analysis of Zn ions in the equilibrated solutions using ICP-AES. The results of column test showed that i) the peak concentration of ZnCl$_2$analyzed by ICP was far less than that of either NaCl or bulk electrical conductivity and ⅱ) travel times of peak concentrations for two tracers were more less identical. The relatively low concentration of Zn can be explained by ion exchange between Zn and other cations, and possible precipitation of Zn in the form of Zn(OH)$_2$due to high pH range (7.0∼7.9) of the effluent. The identical result of travel times of peak concentrations indicates that the retardation effect is not present in the soil. The only way to describe the prominent decrease of Zn ion was to introduce decay or sink coefficient in the CDE model to account for irreversible decrease of Zn ions in the aqueous phase.