Adsorption of carotenes and phosphorus from palm oil onto acid activated bleaching earth: Equilibrium, kinetics and thermodynamics

In this work, the adsorption of carotenes and phosphorus from crude palm oil onto acid activated bleaching earth was investigated under bleaching conditions, i.e. high temperature (90, 105 and 115 °C) and low pressure (less than 50 mbar). Bleaching earth was added to palm oil in a range of 0.5-3.0 wt%. Results presented in this work suggest that adsorption of β-carotene increases with temperature, while phosphorus adsorption was less affected. Both the pseudo-first-order and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model describe efficiently the β-carotene experimental data. Intra-particle diffusion is involved in β-carotene adsorption mechanism, although it is not the sole rate limiting step in the adsorption onto acid activated bleaching earth. Phosphorus adsorption was too fast resulting in a lack of kinetic data. The equilibrium data were described better by Langmuir and Freundlich models, for β-carotene and phosphorus, respectively. A multi-component Freundlich type isotherm was tested. Its competition coefficients were too low, and it assumed the same form as the monocomponent Freundlich. A thermodynamic study demonstrated that β-carotene and phosphorus adsorption is spontaneous, endothermic and an entropy-driven process. Isosteric heat values suggest that the interactions between adsorbate and adsorbent are heterogeneous.