Abstract
Multicomponent adsorption equilibrium data were measured through binary adsorption experiments performed in a fixed bed column packed with Amberlyst 15-wet for the ethyl lactate system, at 20°C and 50°C. A novel approach based on the multicomponent Langmuir isotherm was used assuming a constant monolayer capacity in terms of volume for all species, reducing the adjustable parameters from 8 to 5, for each temperature. Reactive adsorption experiments were performed and used to validate a mathematical model developed for both fixed bed and simulated moving bed reactors, which involves velocity variations due to the change of multicomponent mixture properties.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Carla S.M. Pereira gratefully acknowledges to Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) the PhD Research Fellowships SFRH/BD/23724/2005. This work was also supported by the project POCI/EQU/61580/2004 (FCT, Portugal).