I can figure out how temperature and adsorbent surface area affect the rate, but what does adsorbate flow rate do to the rate of adsorption?
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The adsorbate flow rate determines how quickly the adsorption process occurs, just like how water flows faster through a pipe.
The rate of absorption is proportional to the concentration of adsorbate in solution at the adsorbent surface.
In a static situation, the adsorption rate starts fast but in doing so, depletes the local concentration of adsorbate, so the adsorption rate goes down.
If the adsorbate solution is flowing across the adsorbent, the depleted solution is constantly being replaced by fresh solution still at the initial concentration, so adsorption is somewhat faster than in the static case. How much faster depends on how fast the solution is flowing: at very low flow, you get partial depletion before replacement can happen, so the average increase is not as high as when the flow is very fast.
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