Measurement and modeling of water vapor adsorption on zeolite 4A-equilibria and kinetics

The adsorption of water vapor on Zeolite 4A has been analyzed. Both equilibrium and kinetics are examined. The equilibrium is measured with a static-volumetric method in a wide range of partial pressure and temperature and is modeled by several conventional approaches and a new type isotherm model, which fitted the obtained data best. Kinetics are determined by measuring breakthrough curves. The breakthrough curves are matched by a detailed model based on a modified linear driving force (LDF) approximation for the mass exchange. An analytic expression for the corresponding LDF-coefficient is designed in order to describe its dependency on water concentration, temperature and pressure. For the practical range of operating conditions the dependency on concentration can be described by the nonlinearity of the adsorption isotherm. The dependency on temperature and pressure corresponds to that of molecular diffusion. The presented data and models for equilibria and kinetics provide a basis for modeling and optimizing air-drying processes containing Zeolite 4A.