Effects of Operating Conditions on Adsorption and Desorption of Benzene in TSA Process Using Activated Carbon and Zeolite 13X

초록

The effects of operating conditions such as benzene concentration, nitrogen flow rate, steam flow rate, and bed temperature on TSA process were experimentally investigated as a potential VOC removal technology using two kinds of beds packed with activated carbon and zeolite 13X. The TSA cycle studied was composed of the adsorption step, steam desorption step, and drying and cooling step. At 2% benzene concentration, the total adsorption amounts of zeolite 13X and activated carbon were 4.44 g and 3.65 g, respectively. Since the zeolite 13X has a larger packing density than that of the activated carbon, the larger benzene amount could be adsorbed in a single cycle. Increasing the water vapor flow rate to 75 g/hr at 2% benzene concentration reduced the desorption time from 1 hr to a maximum of 33 min. If the desorption time is shortened, the drying and cooling step period can be relatively increased. Accordingly, the steam removal and bed cooling could be sufficiently performed. The desorption amounts increased with the increase of the bed temperature. However, the energy consumption increased while the desorption amount was almost constant above 150 degrees C. In the continuous cycle process, when the amount of remained benzene at the completion of the regeneration step increased, it might cause a decrease in the working capacity of the adsorbent. The continuous cycle process experiment for zeolite 13X showed that the amount of remained benzene at the end of regeneration step maintained a constant value after the fourth cycle.

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