Mass transport, kinetic model, and application of CO2 adsorption on zeolite 5A granules

Environmental damage ranges from soil degradation, air pollution, and wastewater from human-induced activity. In this study, to reduce CO₂ emission, zeolite granules were prepared manually. In addition, the mass transfer and kinetic adsorption were analyzed to understand the mechanism of CO₂ adsorption using mathematical models. We studied the effects of amount of binder, temperature, granule size, and flow rate of CO₂ on efficient CO₂ adsorption on zeolite 5A granules of different sizes (3–4 and 6–7 mm). The kinetics of CO₂ adsorption and mass transfer of zeolite 5A granules were evaluated for the rate-limiting step. The results showed that decreasing the temperature and the amount of binder increased the CO₂ adsorption capacity. We observed the highest CO₂ adsorption capacity of 2.84 mmol g⁻¹ at 298 K with 4 wt% of the binder at a flow rate of 2 L h⁻¹. The pseudo-first-order sorption behavior was the best model with R² > 0.9832, whereas the root mean square error model showed an R² < 0.2136. The Biot number and film diffusion model were used to investigate the importance of external mass transfer on intraparticle diffusion. It was confirmed that the adsorption on sustainable zeolite 5A granules was controlled by film diffusion.