Equilibrium, Kinetics and Thermodynamics of the Bleaching of Palm Oil Using Activated Nando Clay

The effectiveness of Nando clay in the bleaching of palm oil was studied in this work. The clay was prepared by activating it with hydrochloric acid. The bleaching was carried out at different temperatures, adsorbent dosage and particle sizes. The result suggests that increase in temperature and adsorbent dosage increases the bleaching efficiency while the increase in particle size decreases the bleaching efficiency. Both the pseudo-first-order and the pseudo-second-order kinetic models describe efficiently the experimental data of the bleaching process. Intra-particle diffusion though involved in the adsorptive bleaching mechanism, is not the sole rate-limiting step in the bleaching of palm oil with activated Nando clay. The equilibrium data were described better by Langmuir and Freundlich models. The enthalpy, entropy and activation energy were determined to be 6.127 KJ/mol, 3.982 KJ/mol and 15.281 KJ respectively. The free energy was found to vary between- 3.999 to- 3.760 KJ/mol. The result indicates that bleaching efficiency of up to 96% can be obtained with the activated clay as an adsorbent.