Development of an Activated Carbon Fiber Cloth Adsorption/Regeneration System to Recover and Reuse Toxic Volatile Organic Compounds

 

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this project are to: 1) design and construct an ACFC adsorption system utilizing electrothermal regeneration and cryogenic vapor recovery, 2) conduct experimental measurements of removal efficiencies and breakthrough times for select TVOCs and acetone with the fixed bed of ACFC, 3) cryogenically recover the concentrated vapor and analyze purity of the condensate, 4) evaluate the experimental results with existing models for adsorption and condensation, and 5) describe new or larger-scale applications of the developed laboratory system. Acetone was listed as a TVOC at the initiation of this project, has large emissions to the atmosphere, and is a good surrogate for other TVOCs. Results for research pertaining to acetone are also reported here. Our research activities to meet these objectives are discussed in the next three main sections.