Resumen:
This paper examines the long-term application of a cyclodextrin hydrogel sorbent in multiple sorption-desorption cycles. Aqueous phenol was the target pollutant, whilst methanol, ethanol and isopropanol were chosen as eluents. The experimental results were well described by empirical models: the breakthrough curves by a two-parameter dose-response equation, and the elution curves by a pulse peak equation with two independent parameters. The differences in polarity of solvents produced sorbent fragmentation, particularly marked for isopropanol and considerably lower for methanol, and therefore a progressive increase in mass-transfer coefficients. In addition, a dual approach was developed from the proposed breakthrough model to address the mass transport of sorbate within the packed beds. The first one defines an average mass-transfer coefficient as representative for each complete sorption cycle, whereas a time-profile of this coefficient is deduced in the second method. A sorption capacity of 29.6 mg-phenol/g-sorbent was found in the working conditions.
