English

Fractal kinetics versus fractional derivative kinetics

Statistical Mechanics 2018-01-08 v1

Abstract

This study presents a detailed comparison of the two most popular fractal theories used in the field of kinetics sorption of pollutants in porous materials: the Brouers-Sotolongo model family of kinetics based on the BurrXII statistical distribution and the fractional kinetics based on the Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative theory. Using the experimental kinetics data of several studies published recently, it can be concluded that, although these two models both yield very similar results, the Brouers-Sotolongo model is easier to use due to its simpler formal expression and because it enjoys all the properties of a well-known family of distribution functions. We use the opportunity of this study to comment on the information, in particular, the sorption strength, the half-life time, and the time dependent rate, which can be drawn from a complete analysis of measured kinetics using a fractal model. This is of importance to characterize and classify sorbent-sorbate couples for practical applications. Finally, a generalization form of the Brouers-Sotolongo equation is presented by introducing a time dependent fractal exponent. This improvement, which has a physical meaning, is necessary in some cases to obtain a good fit of the experimental data.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1801.01175,
  title  = {Fractal kinetics versus fractional derivative kinetics},
  author = {Francois Brouersa and Tariq J. Al-Musawib},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.01175},
  year   = {2018}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T23:35:54.294Z