Experimental and Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Industrial Water Desalination with High Salinity by Adsorption Chlorine on Resin in a Packed Column

Abstract

To investigate chlorine adsorption from water onto resins, some batch adsorption tests were considered. The mechanisms and characteristic parameters of the adsorption process were analyzed using isotherm models which revealed the following order (based on the coefficient of determination): Flory–Huggins (0.99) > Fowler-Guggenheim (0.98) >, and Langmuir (0.38).The experimental data were examined using two kinetic models, including first- and second-order ones with R² value of 0.88, 0.1 respectively. According to the adsorption isotherm study, the Flory–Huggins isotherm model better fit adsorption on the surface of resin, as compared to other models. Assessing the thermodynamic parameters found out that the adsorption of Cl onto resins became an exothermic and spontaneous process. The results were then obtained. Similarly, the results of the experiment were provided via the computational fluid dynamics evaluation. Moreover, the results obtained by computational fluid dynamics were compared with the experimental data, and their accuracy was proved. Subsequently, the effects of changing the design and operating parameters, including flow rate (3, 6, 10 L min⁻¹) and bed height (10, 20, 40 cm) on the performance of this tower were studied. The results showed that by reducing the adsorbent, the adsorbed Cl increased and a longer bed was required for adsorption, which was not cost-effective. The amount of adsorption decreased as the flow rate increased, indicating that there was little contact between the Cl and the adsorbent.