Electrothermal Adsorption And Desorption Of Volatile Organic Compounds On Activated Carbon Fiber Cloth PDF Download

Emissions of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to the atmosphere are serious environmental issues. There were 0.53 billion kg of HAPs and 15 billion kg of VOCs emitted to the atmosphere from anthropogenic sources during 2004 and 2002, respectively. Eighty-nine percent of those HAPs were emitted from point sources that can be readily captured by techniques such as adsorption. The cost to meet regulations for VOC control during 2010 was estimated at $2.3 billion/yr. Environmental regulations encourage the development of new technologies to more effectively remove HAPs/VOCs from gas streams at lower cost. Electrothermal Swing Adsorption (ESA), as described here, is a desirable means to control these emissions as it allows for capture, recovery and reuse or disposal of these materials while providing for a more sustainable form of technological development. The Vapor Phase Removal and Recovery System (VaPRRS or ESA-R)) was initially evaluated for possible improvements. An automated bench-scale adsorption device using activated carbon fiber cloth (ACFC) was designed and built to study effects of select independent engineering parameters on the ability of the system to capture and recover an organic vapor (e.g., methyl ethyl ketone, MEK) from air streams. Factors that can increase the adsorbate liquid recovery with low energy costs were investigated using sequentially designed sets of laboratory experiments. Initially, the screening experiments were conducted to determine significant factors influencing the energy efficiency of the desorption process. It was determined that 0́−concentration of organic vapor0́+, 0́−packing density0́+, and 0́−maximum heating temperature0́+ are significant factors while 0́−nitrogen flow0́+ and 0́−heating algorithm0́+ are insignificant factors in the ranges of values that were evaluated. Experimental data provided from this work were then used as inputs by Kaldate (2005) to complete a response surface methodology using Central Composite Design to optimize the operation of the ESA system in a region where efficient liquid recovery can be achieved. These results were used by Kaldate (2005) to reduce the amount of power applied per unit mass of ACFC in the vessel and provide a scale-up model of the ESA system. A comparison between experimental bench-scale VaPRRS and a pilot-scale VaPRRS was also completed as part of this research. Results from this effort demonstrated that both the bench-scale and pilot-scale ESA systems had removal efficiencies of MEK > 98%. The average electrical energy per unit mass of recovered liquid MEK was 4.6 kJ/g and 18.3 kJ/g for the bench unit and pilot unit, respectively. A new concentration controlled desorption device, known as ESA-Steady State Tracking (ESA-SS) desorption, was also designed and built as a bench-scale laboratory device as part of this research. This new system was demonstrated to operate over a wide range of conditions (i.e., type of organic vapor, concentration of organic vapor, ratio of desorption/adsorption cycle gas flow rates, fixed and dynamic desorption concentration set-points, constant and variable inlet concentration of organic vapor, batch and cyclic modes, and with dry and humid gas streams). It was shown that concentration of organic vapor that is generated during regeneration cycles can readily be controlled at concentration set-points for three organic compounds (MEK, acetone, and toluene). The average absolute errors (AAEs) were