Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

George, Clifford E.

Committee Member

Zappi, Mark E.

Committee Member

Toghiani, Hossein

Committee Member

Schultz, Tor P.

Date of Degree

12-13-2003

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Chemical Engineering

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering

Abstract

This study evaluated the effectiveness of using cellulosic adsorbents to dehydrate 95 wt% ethanol/5 wt% water mixture. Hardwood sawdust, kenaf core, and bleached wood pulp were used as adsorbents in both liquid phase and gas phase experiments. All three adsorbents preferentially adsorbed water compared to ethanol. Bleached wood pulp exhibited the best performance of adsorbents examined. Data from the liquid ? phase experiments were fitted to the Chakravarti ? Dhar isotherm equation. From the vapor ? phase experiments, the average water loading of hardwood sawdust, kenaf core, and bleached wood pulp was 0.0037, 0.0076, and 0.0121 g H2O/g adsorbent, respectively. Two methods, the Colburn J Factor and the Thoenes ? Kramers correlation, were used to evaluate the mass transfer coefficient of water. Furthermore, the surface area of the adsorbents was measured using the B.E.T. method. Surface areas were 4.91, 9.99, and 8.84 m2/g for the hardwood sawdust, kenaf core, and the bleached wood pulp, respectively.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/19254

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