Computer-aided Modeling and Evaluation of a Packed Bed for Chromium (vi) Removal Using Residual Biomass of Theobroma Cacao L.

Abstract

The use of residual biomass in environmental applications continues gaining attention of the scientific community, the presence of heavy metals in the environment represents a problem of interest due to their toxicity, accumulation, and persistence. Bio-adsorption allows the use of agricultural or industrial waste, it is an efficient and non-destructive method for the removal of heavy metals, making it a viable method due to its low cost and easy implementation, however, the behaviour at large scale of these biomass-based emerging technologies is unknown; in this work, the modeling and computer-aided scaling up of an industrial scale column for the adsorption of Cr (VI) present in aqueous solution on an adsorbent based on Theobroma cacao L. was performed using Aspen Adsorption V10 software. The parameters for the modeling were obtained from experiments performed by the authors and scientific literature. Results show parameters as flowrate of feedstock, bed diameter and bed length showed sensitivity in the performance of the breakthrough column.