• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.169-174
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• 2017

Vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) is a promising treatment method for volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This study focuses on a VSA process for regenerating activated carbon spent with VOCs, and then investigates its adsorption capacities. Toluene was selected as the test VOC molecule, and the VSA regeneration experiments results were compared to the thermal swing adsorption process. Cyclic adsorption-desorption experiments were performed using a lab-scale apparatus with commercial activated carbon (Samchully Co.). The VSA regeneration was performed in air (0.5 L/min) at 363.15 K and 13,332 Pa. The comparative results depicted that in terms of VSA regeneration, it was found that after the fifth regeneration, about a 90% regeneration ratio was maintained. These experiments thus confirm that the VSA regeneration process has good recovery while operating at low temperatures (363.15 K) and 13,332 Pa.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.432-437
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• 2005

An electric swing adsorption (ESA) process for recovering highly pure $CO_2$ from the mixed gases was tested. In this study, activated carbon fibers were used as an adsorbent. The activated carbon fibers showed fast adsorption rate and the high adsorption capacity for $CO_2$ adsorption under the condition of the ambient pressure. Activated carbon fiber with higher specific surface area was suitable to repeated adsorption-desorption cycle process, showing consistent breakthrough curve. Especially, the regeneration method by vacuum combined with ESA improved the performance of desorption process by an additional 17％ regeneration efficiency compared to a vacuum only method, and showed the high regeneration efficiency at comparatively low 7-8 Wh energy.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.332-338
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• 2017

The objective of this work was to study the low temperature vacuum adsorption technology applicable to small and medium scale painting plants, which is the main emission source of volatile organic compounds. The low-temperature vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) technology is the way that the adsorbates are removed by reducing pressure at low temperature ($60{\sim}90^{\circ}C$) to compensate disadvantages of the existing thermal swing adsorption (TSA) technology. Commercial activated carbon was used and the absorption and desorption characteristics of toluene, a representative VOCs, were tested on a lab scale. Also based on the lab scale experimental results, a $30m^3min^{-1}$ VSA system was designed and applied to the actual painting factory to assess the applicability of the VSA system in the field. As a result of lab scale experiments, a 2 mm pellet type activated carbon showed higher toluene adsorption capacity than that of using 4 mm pellet type, and was used in a practical scale VSA system. Optimum conditions for desorption experiments were $80{\sim}90^{\circ}C$ and 100 torr. In the practical scale system, the adsorption/desorption cycles were repeated 95 times. As a result, VOCs discharged from the painting factory can be effectively removed upto 98% or more even after repeated adsorption/desorption cycles when using VSA technology indicating potential field applicabilities.

• Clean Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.101-109
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• 2004

PSA and VSA processes have been used broadly to produce oxygen from ambient air in midium- or small-sized plants. PSA and VSA processes are the separation methods which use difference of amount adsorbed as pressure is changed periodically, but they have the differences in pressurization and regeneration. In this study, the performance of 6-step PSA process was compared with that of 5-step VSA process with respect to purity and recovery. In addition, the effects of each step (pressurization step, adsorption step, and pressure equalization step) on purity and recovery were investigated. As a result, the VSA process using zeolite 10X showed better performance than the zeolite 5A PSA and zeolite 13X VSA process in comparison with purity, recovery and productivity. And it was enough to apply the vacuum pressure of 200 torr for the VSA, which produced over 90% oxygen with 70% recovery.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.527-534
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• 2012

The adsorption dynamics of activated carbon (AC) and carbon molecular sieve (CMS) beds were studied to recover ethylene from FCC fuel gas. In this study, the FCC fuel gas used consisted of six-component mixture ($CH_4/C_2H_4/C_2H_6/C_3H_6/N_2/H_2$,32:15:14:2:12:25 vol.%). And the breakthrough experiments of adsorption and desorption were carried out. The breakthrough sequence in the AC bed was $H_2$ < $N_2$ < $CH_4$ < $C_2H_4$ < $C_2H_6$ while the sequence in the CMS bed was $H_2$ < $CH_4$ < $N_2$ < $C_2H_6$ < $C_2H_4$. The separation performance of the CMS bed during the adsorption step was lower than that of the AC bed. However, due to the characteristics of kinetic separation, the CMS bed could remove $CH_4/N_2$ as well asthe molecules that are larger than $C_2H_6$, which was not easy to be done by the AC bed. Since it was hard to regenerate the adsorption bed by simple depressurization, vacuum regeneration should be adopted. As a result, the pressure vacuum swing adsorption (PVSA) process, consisting of CMS pretreatment process and AC main process, was suggested to recover ethylene efficiently.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.201-209
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• 2006

Various desorption methods were investigated for an activated carbon and zeolite 13X packed bed after benzene adsorption. Desorption experiments using hot steam, purge gas, and evacuation were performed. As a result, the desorption with hot steam showed the best performance. Hot steam makes the temperature in the adsorption column increase and gives arise to the desorption. Drying process should be accompanied to increase the efficiency because steam vapor prevents the adsorption later. The vacuum desorption showed poor performance and it reveals that temperature swing operation is more effective than pressure swing operation. In the purge gas desorption, good performance was achieved using evacuation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.1025-1032
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• 2009

This study investigated a possibility to develop an adsorption process for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of the solvent emitted during dry cleaning. Pitch activated carbon fiber (ACF) was chosen as an adsorbent of VOCs, and an electric swing adsorption process was utilized for the reproduction of the adsorbent after the completion of VOCs adsorption. Effects of ACF types and several solvents such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and toluene were examined on breakthrough curves and amounts of adsorbed VOCs. ACF was pretreated under various conditions in order to enhance the amounts of the adsorbed VOCs. Temperatures and voltages were measured for the reproduction of the ACF after full adsorption. ACF having micropores exhibited high adsorption of TCE, and high surface area of ACF could increase the adsorption property of toluene. In general, ACF could adsorb 41~54% TCE of the adsorbent weight. The increase of inlet VOCs concentration significantly decreased the breakthrough time and slightly lowered the amounts of adsorbed VOCs. Thus, ACF could effectively adsorb VOCs in low concentration in the feed stream. ACF pretreated by heat under vacuum showed excellent toluene adsorption with controlling oxygen functional groups on the ACF surface, which revealed that vacant carbon site could be the adsorption point of toluene. Most adsorbed toluene was desorbed at $150^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2002.04a
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• pp.23-46
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• 2002

The cryogenic, pressure swing adsorption and membrane methods have been used to separate air into nitrogen and oxygen. The air separation membrane is made of the polymers, of which manufacturing process is complicate and it causes a little high production cost. Polymer membrane has temperature limit in usage and low durability even at moderate temperature. Therefore, inorganic membranes have been studied for years. As formation of unit alumino-silicate membrane, unit cells of membrane were made with a few coating methods. In this study the dipping of substrate into sols, application of vacuum to the opposite side of substrate with coating and rotating of the substrate in the sols were found as good coating memthods to make a uniform coating and to control the thickness of membrane. The membrane coats were examined by SEM and XRD. The sample ESZl-1 was compared with those of samples that prepared by another method. The present developed coating methods could be applied to the various types of zeolite membrane formation, that is A- X-, Y- ZSM- and MCM-types of membranes. Also these membrane forming methods could be applied to formation of catalyst absorbed zeolite membrane, of which zeolite absorb the catalytic metals. The product obtained from these coating methods could be applied to the industrial gas and liquid phase catalytic reaction and separation processes.