RESPONSI SOLID SURFACE (2)

PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITAS KATOLIK PARAHYANGAN

1. A monolayer of CO molecules (effective area 0.165 nm 2) is

adsorbed on the surface of 1.00 g of an Fe/Al 203 catalyst at 77 K,
the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. Upon warming, the carbon
monoxide occupies 4.25 cm3 at O0Cand 1.00 bar. What is the
surface area of the catalyst?

2. The data for the adsorption of ammonia on barium fluoride are

reported below. Confirm that they fit a BET isotherm and find
values of C and Vmon!

a) Ө= 0°C, p*=429.6 kPa

p/kPa 14.0 37.6 65.6 79.2 82.7 100.7 106.4
V/cm3 11.1 13.5 14.9 16.0 15.5 17.3 16.5

3. A. Akgerman and M. Zardkoohi (J. Chem. Eng. Data 41,185 (1996))

examined the adsorption of phenol from aqueous solution on to fly
ash at 20°C. They fitted their observations to a Freundlich isotherm
of the form where Cads is the concentration of
adsorbed phenol and Csol is the concentration of aqueous phenol.
Among the data reported are the following:

Csol/(mg g-1) 8.26 15.63 25.43 31.74 40.00

Cads/(mg g-1) 4.4 19.2 35.2 52.0 67.2

Determine the constants K and n. What further information would

be necessary in order to express the data in terms of fractional
coverage, Ө?

4. The release of petroleum products by leaky underground storage

tanks is a serious threat to clean ground water. BTEX compounds
(benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes) are of primary
concern due to their ability to cause health problems at low
concentrations. D.S. Kershaw, B.C. Kulik, and S. Pamukcu (J.
Geotech. & Geoenvir. Engrg. 123,324(1997)) have studied the
ability of ground tyre rubber to sorb (adsorb and absorb) benzene
and 0-xylene. Though sorption involves more than surface
interactions, sorption data are usually found to fit one of the
adsorption isotherms. In this study, the authors have tested how
well their data fit the linear (q =KCeq), Freundlich (q =KF Ceq1/n), and
Langmuir (q =KLMCeq/(1 +KLCeq) type isotherms, where q is the mass
of solvent sorbed per gram of ground rubber (in milligrams per
gram), the Ks and M are empirical constants, and c eq the
equilibrium concentration of contaminant in solution (in milligrams
per litre).

(a) Determine the units of the empirical constants.

(b) Determine which of the isotherms best fits the data in the table
below for the sorption of benzene on ground rubber.

Ceq (mg dm-3) 97.10 36.10 10.40 6.51 6.21 2.48

q/ (mg g-1) 7.13 4.60 1.80 1.10 0.55 0.31

(c) Compare the sorption efficiency of ground rubber to that of

granulated activated charcoal, which for benzene has been
shown to obey the Freundlich isotherm in the form
q = 1.0 Ceq 1.6 with coefficient of determination R2 = 0.94.