Monday, April 30, 2007
3-43

Modelling and simulation of batch adsorption process of fructose on activated carbon

Wallace L. S. Torres1, Renata M. R. G. Almeida1, Wagner R. O. Pimentel1, Frede O. Carvalho1, and Marcondes L. Silva2. (1) Technology Center, Federal University of Alagoas, Campus A. C. Simoes, Via Br 104-North, Km 97, Tabuleiro dos Martins, Maceio, Brazil, (2) Fundacao Visconde de Cairu, Salete street, n. 50, Parris, Salvador, Brazil

The fructose is an important sugar found in the nature, present in fruits and in the honey, could be used as sweetener in patients' diets with hypoglycemia. The fructose can be produced industrially from the inversion of the sucrose, however it should be separated from the produced glucose. The process of adsorption is the most used in the separation of sugars with high commercial value, like this product. In this context, for a larger understanding of the adsorption process it is necessary the realization of the mathematical modelling and simulation of the process. It is observed that numeric methods, like orthogonal collocation, have been used in problems with reaction and diffusion. In this work, the theoretical study was carried out of simulation and mathematical modelling of the fructose adsorption on activated carbon. The results were compared with the experimental data of the runs carried out on different temperature conditions, 20, 30 and 50oC. Two models were appraised: first a kinetic model, where kinetic parameters were adjusted; second a diffusion model, built to adjust kinetic and diffusion parameters, where the method of the orthogonal collocation was used to solve of the partial differential equations of the model. For this step, numeric strategy and computational programs were developed for solution of the differential and algebraic equations of the model. The minimum square method was used in the two models for parameters obtention for the adjustment with the experimental data. The obtained results were suitable with the expected ones.