Modeling competitive adsorption of mixtures of volatile organic compounds in a fixed-bed of beaded activated carbon.

A two-dimensional mathematical model was developed to study competitive adsorption of n-component mixtures in a fixed-bed adsorber. The model consists of an isotherm equation to predict adsorption equilibria of n-component volatile organic compounds (VOCs) mixture from single component isotherm data, and a dynamic adsorption model, the macroscopic mass, energy and momentum conservation equations, to simulate the competitive adsorption of the n-components onto a fixed-bed of adsorbent. The model was validated with experimentally measured data of competitive adsorption of binary and eight-component VOCs mixtures onto beaded activated carbon (BAC). The mean relative absolute error (MRAE) was used to compare the modeled and measured breakthrough profiles as well as the amounts of adsorbates adsorbed. For the binary and eight-component mixtures, the MRAE of the breakthrough profiles was 13 and 12%, respectively, whereas, the MRAE of the adsorbed amounts was 1 and 2%, respectively. These data show that the model provides accurate prediction of competitive adsorption of multicomponent VOCs mixtures and the competitive adsorption isotherm equation is able to accurately predict equilibrium adsorption of VOCs mixtures.

Two-dimensional modeling of volatile organic compounds adsorption onto beaded activated carbon.

A two-dimensional heterogeneous computational fluid dynamics model was developed and validated to study the mass, heat, and momentum transport in a fixed-bed cylindrical adsorber during the adsorption of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from a gas stream onto a fixed bed of beaded activated carbon (BAC). Experimental validation tests revealed that the model predicted the breakthrough curves for the studied VOCs (acetone, benzene, toluene, and 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene) as well as the pressure drop and temperature during benzene adsorption with a mean relative absolute error of 2.6, 11.8, and 0.8%, respectively. Effects of varying adsorption process variables such as carrier gas temperature, superficial velocity, VOC loading, particle size, and channelling were investigated. The results obtained from this study are encouraging because they show that the model was able to accurately simulate the transport processes in an adsorber and can potentially be used for enhancing absorber design and operation.