Dynamic bed measurements of CO adsorption on microporous adsorbents at high pressures for hydrogen purification processes

Regarding the importance of adsorptive removal of carbon monoxide from hydrogen-rich mixtures for novel applications (e.g. fuel cells), this work provides a series of experimental data on adsorption isotherms and breakthrough curves of carbon monoxide. Three recently developed 5A zeolites and one commercial activated carbon were used as adsorbents. Isotherms were measured gravimetrically at temperatures of 278-313 K and pressures up to 0.85 MPa. Breakthrough curves of CO were obtained from dynamic column measurements at temperatures of 298-301 K, pressures ranging from 0.1 MPa to ca. 6 MPa and concentrations of CO in H-2/CO mixtures of 5-17.5 mol%. A simple mathematical model was developed to simulate breakthrough curves on adsorbent beds using measured and calculated data as inputs. The number of parameters and the use of correlations to evaluate them were restricted in order to focus the importance of measured values. For the given assumptions and simplifications, the results show that the model predictions agree satisfactorily with the experimental data at the different operating conditions applied. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.