Effect of operation parameters on adsorption of thiophene from benzene over CeY sorbent

The effect of operation parameters, such as particle size of the CeY sorbent, space velocity, and concentration of the solution and temperature of the fixed bed, on the adsorption of thiophene from benzene was investigated. The results show that this effect can be ascribed to the change of the inner and external diffusion process of the mass transfer resistance and the adsorption type, which are affected by those operation parameters respectively. The suitable operation parameters were the particle sizes of 0.2~0.3 mm, space velocity of the solution of 0.85 h^-1. At the conditions of room temperature and atmospheric pressure, CeY sorbent can entirely remove the thiophene from benzene with the breakthrough time and adsorption capacity of thiophene of above 400 min and 4.61 mg/g in the benzene containing thiophene 500 mg/L, respectively.