Adsorprion equilibria were investigated for creslol isomer in a single and a binary solvent onto silica gel at 30$\circC$ and 50$\circC$ The binary solvent was composed of pure n-hexane and ethylacetate.
The concentration range of cresol isomer was from 0.0 to 30.0 mol/$m^3$ and that of ethylacetate was from 0.0 to 511.0mol/$m^3$ (5%V/V). The affinity with respect to silica gel decreased in the sequence of p-, m-, o-cresol and ethylacetate at all temperatures.
Separation characteristics of cresol isomers were investigated by the single column liquid-solid chromatography packed with silica gel. The effects of solvent strength of ethylacetate on the separation of cresol isomer were also investigated. Experimental results show that the solvent strength can be used as a good driving force to separate a mixture, like in pressure swing or temperature swing adsorptions.
The equilibrium constant and the rate parameters were obtained by the method of moments. The diffusion model using the approximated linear isotherm and neglecting the axial dispersion developed in this study can predict column performance at high concentration of ethylacetate.
