Adsorption of Th(IV) and U(VI) on functionalized SBA-15 mesoporous silica materials using fixed bed column method; breakthrough curves prediction and modeling

Abstract

Removal–separation of Th(IV)/U(VI) by Schiff base functionalized SBA-15 materials SBA/SA and SBA/EnSA using fixed bed column method was investigated. The effects of flow rate and bed height were studied and the experimental breakthrough curves were obtained. The analysis of experimental data showed that the breakthrough time and exhaustion time, metal uptake capacity and total metal removal increased with reducing the flow rate, and with increasing the bed height. Thomas and Yan models were applied to the experimental data for evaluating the dynamic behavior and the characteristic parameters of the column for the process design.