Simulation and Parametric Evaluation of Pb (II) Adsorption in a Biomass-Packed Bed Using Isothermal Freundlich–LDF and Langmuir II–LDF Models

The objective of this study was to model an adsorption column bed with biomass residues using computational software to remove Pb (II) at the industrial level and analyse the effects of parametric variation. For this purpose, several simulations of the adsorption column were performed using Aspen Adsorption software, evaluating the effects of varied height, inlet flow rate, and initial concentration on the adsorption process performance. The Langmuir II and Freundlich models are established as isotherm models, and the linear driving force (LDF) model is established as the kinetic model. The findings showed that Freundlich–LDF obtained efficiencies of up to 99.9% and Langmuir II–LDF efficiencies of up to 99.7%. The optimal simulation conditions were a column height of 4 m, an initial Pb (II) concentration of 3000 mg/L, and an inlet flow rate of 250 m3/d. This study presents a novel engineering approach to predict the potential performance of columns packed with organic waste-derived biomasses in multi-scale Pb (II) removal using computer-aided engineering tools.