Juana Juyo1, Joaquin Tirano2, Gabriel Camargo1, Liliana Giraldo3, and Juan Carlos Moreno-pirajan4. (1) Chemical Engineering, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, (2) Chemical Engineering Department, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, (3) Chemistry, Universidad nacional, Colombia, (4) Chemistry, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia
Mercury (II) removal was studied using two different adsorbents: waste FCC catalyst and NaY zeolite. Those materials were characterized using TGA, XRD, IR, calorimetry and BET. The zeolite superficial area is 773 m2/g and that of the FCC catalyst is 135 m2/g. The maximum adsorption capacity was 1.8561 mg/g for the FCC catalyst and 2.6845 mg/g for the zeolite. The equilibrium isotherms were described with the langmuir and freundlich linear models. Besides, the kinetics was described using Lagergren and Pseudo-second order models, the latter fit better the results. After the adsorbents were used, they were regenerated acquiring their superficial areas as 675 and 87 m2/g for the zeolite and the FCC catalyst, respectively.