Songklanakarin Journal of Science and Technology (SJST) (Sep 2006)

Sorption and desorption of toluene, m-xylene, p-cresol and water by natural rubber chips

  • Duangkamol Dechojarassri,
  • Savalee Jaroenkarn,
  • Pore Jumpathi,
  • Panu Danwanichakul

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 28, no. 5
pp. 1071 – 1082

Abstract

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The transport mechanism of several pure liquid organic substances into natural rubber chips composed of different fillers was investigated. It was found that, for the same type of chips, the Fickian diffusion of toluene was the fastest, followed by m-xylene, water and p-cresol. The toluene uptake was highest which was as high as 3.42 times of the chip weight. This was closely followed by m- xylene uptake, which was much higher than p-cresol uptake and water uptake which was only 0.02 times of the chip weight, implying that natural rubber could be used to remove these organic substances contaminated in water. The desorption of substances into air followed the similar trend as sorption. Besides, for any substances, the results showed that unfilled chips had the largest sorption capacity, followed by ones with calcium carbonate and carbon black.

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