Equilibrium loadings and adsorption isotherm model parameters estimated from multi-component breakthrough curves

Quantitative knowledge of competitive adsorption isotherms is essential for the design and optimization of adsorption based separation processes. Since the experimental determination of these thermodynamic functions is complicated and time consuming, there is a need for fast and easy to apply methods. In particular attractive are methods that evaluate measured breakthrough curves (BTC). Key features of these curves can be predicted with the equilibrium theory, which ignores kinetic effects that cause band broadening. If the adsorption equilibria can be described by the classical competitive Langmuir isotherm model, outlet concentration profiles can be calculated analytically. The paper summarizes and illustrates well-known classical results for N-component systems. The theory is applied to analyze experimentally determined BTC for a ternary mixture fed into an initially fully regenerated column under constant flowrate and under isothermal conditions. It is demonstrated that the retention times and intermediate plateau concentrations, which are observable for example in a single ternary BTC experiment, allow estimating a defined number of characteristic equilibrium loadings. These loadings can be directly used for easy estimation of the parameters of an assumed isotherm model. Various possibilities to use a reduced number of loadings and to include complementary results of standard pulse experiments are described. The isotherms generated from the ternary BTC are successfully validated by results of single component and ternary BTC experiments carried out subsequently. Options to generalize the method to determine isotherm model parameters from measured BTC to initially preloaded columns and to more complex mixtures are finally outlined.