Resumo

MORENO-PIRAJAN, J.C et al. Scale-up of pilot plant for adsortion of heavy metals. An. Asoc. Quím. Argent. [online]. 2006, vol.94, n.4-6, pp.71-82. ISSN 0365-0375.

The present work shows a simple way to design a process scale-up, for an adsorber, from laboratory to industrial level using breakthrough curves in fixed beds developed through the continuous detection of the Pb(II) ion concentration in the effluent of the bed. This procedure was developed in order to examine its efficiency and to be compared with an experimental method developed in the laboratory, which produced similar results. The feasibility of this design lies on the fact that neither tedious calculations nor mass transfer coefficients are required in order to plot the mentioned curves. The procedure was developed by applying concepts such as mass transfer zone (MTZ) and length of unused bed (LUB), which are the dynamic basis of the adsorption process in fixed beds. As a complement to the experimentation, within a pilot plan scale, a filter was developed to handle the most important adsorption parameters and to control the variables that change the operating conditions during the process.