adsorption isotherm modeling of phenol onto natural soils – applicability of various isotherm models

liquid-phases adsorption equilibrium of phenol onto two naturally available soils namely kalathur soil (kr) and adhanur soil (ar) were studied. the experimental data were analyzed using fourteen isotherm models, ranging from single-parametric model to multi-parametric models (up to 5 parameters) of the system. results show that in general the accuracy of models to fit experimental data improves with the degree of freedom. to understand the mechanism involved with different types of sorbate-sorbent system as well as to find out the best fitting isotherm model, the correlation coefficients, and average percentage error and student t-test were carried out. temkin isotherm model, langmuir-freundlich isotherm model and fritz- schlunder model as well as baudu model were found to be the best fit models amongst the two-parametric models, three parametric models and four parametric isotherms modeling, respectively. this study brings out the need of simultaneous solution of multi-parametric equations (using relevant softwares, matlab, in present case) than solution of their linearized forms, which is mostly followed by contemporary investigators.