Trimethylethylene (TME) is being removed from an aqueous chemical plant waste stream. A bench scale system indicates that an adsorbent follows a Langmuir adsorption isotherm as: CA,S = 0.05CA/(32.1 + CA) where CA,S has units of mass over mass, and the constant has units of 32.1 ppm. In a batch tank we have an inlet flow of TME solution at 10L/min with density of 1000kg.m3 . The TME enters at 100 ppm (parts per million, mass solute per 106 mass solution) in the feed. The impurity is not detectable below 1ppm concentrations. The tank contains 15kg of initially fresh adsorbent which is retained in the tank.

We wish to know:

1. How much TME is adsorbed when the breakthrough concentration reaches 1 ppm?

2. Assuming a long residence time, give a rough estimate of how long it will take to reach this detectable outlet concentration?