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An activity-based formulation for Langmuir adsorption isotherm

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Abstract

This work presents an activity-based formulation for Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Treating adsorption as a chemical reaction between the gas molecule and the adsorption vacant site, the classical Langmuir isotherm model expresses the reaction in terms of the species concentrations. Designed to capture the surface heterogeneity, the proposed thermodynamic Langmuir isotherm model substitutes the species concentrations with the species activities and calculates the species activity coefficients with the adsorption non-random two-liquid activity coefficient model. The resulting isotherm model accurately represents pure component adsorption isotherms for gases with wide varieties of adsorbents including silica gels, activated carbons, zeolites and metal organic frameworks at various temperatures. With three physically meaningful parameters, the model outperforms the classical Langmuir isotherm model for the 98 isotherms of 33 systems examined.

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Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Advanced Manufacturing Office Award Number DE-EE0007888. The authors further acknowledge the financial support of the Jack Maddox Distinguished Engineering Chair Professorship in Sustainable Energy, sponsored by the J.F Maddox Foundation. C.-K. Chang acknowledges the WOCE REU program at Texas Tech University for sponsoring his research at TTU. C.-K. also acknowledges H. Kaur for insightful discussions on the aNRTL model. C.-K. further thanks Md Islam and Y. Hao for technical help in the use of Aspen Plus process simulator.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan

    Chun-Kai Chang

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 79409-3121, USA

    Hla Tun & Chau-Chyun Chen

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  1. Chun-Kai Chang
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  2. Hla Tun
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Correspondence to Chau-Chyun Chen.

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Chang, CK., Tun, H. & Chen, CC. An activity-based formulation for Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Adsorption 26, 375–386 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10450-019-00185-4

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