Coupling Effect of Non-Linearity and Chemical Heterogeneity on Reactive Solute Transport in a Fixed Bed

• Main Authors: K. Kaabeche, A. Belbaki
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIDIC Servizi S.r.l. 2013-06-01
• Series: Chemical Engineering Transactions
• Online Access: https://www.cetjournal.it/index.php/cet/article/view/6653

This study investigated the coupling effect of non-linearity adsorbed solute dispersion and chemical heterogeneity on reactive solute transport. This latter is applicated in a fixed bed at laboratory scale, in porous media. Following the approach of continuous media, and taking into account the discrete chemical heterogeneity distribution of the adsorbate, we have developed a model of adsorption in a fixed bed, by introducing a new parameter quantifying the chemical heterogeneity. Highlighting the influence of heterogeneity on the breakthrough curve required a resolution of the advection-dispersion equation, which obtained from the modeling. In our case, we have used an effective numerical method which is the Finite Volume Method, to discretize the partial differential equation obtained. Our work is based on experimental data from the study of (Salman, et al, 2011). Numerical results show that the nonlinear interactive solute transport in a chemical heterogeneous medium differs from that in the homogeneous one. This result is deduced from the difference between the breakthrough curves of the two cases. The breakthrough curve is more spread when chemical heterogeneity of the medium is more important. Fixing the heterogeneity of the medium, we have found that the porous media length has also an effect.