Butane adsorption on activated carbon fibers from coal and petroleum
- Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington, KY (United States). Center for Applied Energy Research
In amendments to the Clean Air Act of 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified over 100 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are detrimental to air quality. Activated carbon is a logical choice for the removal and recovery of VOCs from air streams emanating from a range of industrial sources. The requirements of the carbon adsorbent are especially demanding in applications with high flow rates and low VOC concentrations. In such situations, beds of granular activated carbon (GAC) must be relatively deep in order to provide sufficient contact time for the adequate removal of the adsorbates: beyond the initial adsorption at the outer layers of the granules, the rate of adsorption is controlled by the slower process of intraparticle diffusion. The rate of adsorption can be greatly increased by using small particles or fibers (micron vs millimeter dimensions). At this laboratory the authors have been studying the production, properties and behavior of rigid activated carbon fiber composites based upon a collaboration with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The composites possess an open internal structure which presents little resistance to the flow of fluids, and allows direct access of a contacting fluid the activated fiber surfaces. Consequently, they offer a potential solution to the problems of removing low concentrations of VOCs from large volumes of air. An important criterion in many cases, such as in solvent recovery and in trapping fugitive gasoline emissions, is that the VOCs are removed and then recovered in a cyclic process. The efficiency of such a process relies upon both adsorption and desorption being relatively facile. A convenient measure of the suitability of the activated carbon is its butane working capacity (BWC), which is the amount of butane adsorbed under standard conditions less the amount that is retained after desorption measured in g butane adsorbed per 100 cc carbon. In this paper the authors describe the results of a study to examine the BWC of commercial activated carbon fibers produced from petroleum pitch and coal tar pitch in order to examine the importance of precursor type on the fiber properties, and to try to relate the adsorption/desorption characteristics to the pore texture. The fibers were studied in the form of free fibers and as composites that were produced from them.
- OSTI ID:
- 324726
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970931-; TRN: IM9911%%423
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 14. annual international Pittsburgh coal conference and workshop: clean coal technology and coal utilization, Taiyuan (China), 23-27 Sep 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997; Related Information: Is Part Of Fourteenth annual international Pittsburgh coal conference and workshop: Proceedings; PB: [1500] p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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