Competitive and cooperative adsorption behaviors of phenol and aniline onto nonpolar macroreticular adsorbents

The adsorption behaviors of phenol and aniline on nonpolar macroreticular adsorbents(NDA100 and Amberlite XAD4) were investigated in single or binary batch system at 293K and 313K respectively in this study. The results indicated that the adsorption isotherms of phenol and aniline on both adsorbents in both systems fitted well Langmuir equation, which indicated a favourable and exothermic process. At the lower equilibrium concentrations, the individual amount adsorbed of phenol or aniline on macroreticular adsorbents in single-component systems was higher than those in binary-component systems because of the competition between phenol and aniline towards the adsorption sites. It is noteworthy, on the contrast, that at higher concentrations, the total uptake amounts of phenol and aniline in binary-component systems were obviously larger than that in single-component systems, and a large excess was noted on the adsorbent surface at saturation, which is presumably due to the cooperative effect primarily arisen from the hydrogen bonding or weak acid-base interaction between phenol and aniline.