Get the most from activated-carbon systems
- Norit Americas, Inc., Atlanta, GA (United States)
Many manufacturing operations use organic solvents that evaporate in the course of their transportation, storage and use. Adsorption systems using activated carbon have long been used to recover these airborne solvents and other organic vapors. Adsorption systems are an economical way to reclaim solvents for reuse. They are also an effective way to comply with pollution-control regulations that govern volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in industrial exhaust streams, and vapors collected during soil and site remediations. For most air-pollution-control applications, carbon is activated by subjecting the starting material to controlled charring in a kiln, extruding it into pellets and activating it with steam at roughly 1,000 C. During activation, the carbon pellets develop an intricate pore structure, which may have a total internal surface area of up to 1,500 m{sup 2}/g. It is this internal pore structure that gives activated carbon its purifying capacity. To recover solvents adsorbed on the carbon, energy must be applied to overcome the solvents` attraction to the pore surface. This is most commonly done by applying heat, by means of steam, hot inert gas or direct heating. Desorption can also be carried out by changing the equilibrium conditions, by applying a vacuum or purging the adsorbates from the carbon pores using a gas stream. The solvent vapors coming off the carbon will be concentrated, and can be condensed and recovered as a liquid.
- OSTI ID:
- 64530
- Journal Information:
- Environmental Engineering World, Vol. 1, Issue 3; Other Information: PBD: May-Jun 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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