Influence of the presence of CO2 in the feed of an indirect heating TSA process for VOC removal

This work deals with an experimental study of an indirect temperature swing adsorption process for VOC removal from air or for gas purification. A 1 m long and 70 mm diameter column with an internal heat exchanger has been filled with Ambersorb 600 carbonaceous adsorbent. This column is equipped with sensors to measure temperature at several points inside the bed, as well as the inlet and outlet gas concentration, pressure, temperature and mass flow. In a first step, CO2 or ethane/dry nitrogen mixtures were used to simulate a single VOC in air, with different concentrations (350 ppm, 1% and 10%). As a first results very effective gas purification was obtained and an advantage of this process is the high pollutant concentration during the regeneration phase. Experiments were performed with various ethane/CO2 mixtures. The influence of the presence of CO2 on the ethane concentration breakthrough curves and on the ethane concentration during regeneration is reported. The IAS theory was used, as a first approach, to predict the adsorbed pollutants amount. Relatively good prediction is obtained with a maximum error in the order of 10%. An energy balance study is reported as well.