K. James Hay

Predicting humidity effect on adsorption capacity of activated carbon for water-immiscible organic vapors

Abstract This paper presents a simple numerical solution to the method of Manes (Proceedings of the Engineering Foundation Conference Bavaria, West Germany, 1984: 335) developed from the Polanyi adsorption potential theory to predict the effect of water humidity on the adsorption capacity of activated carbon for a water-immiscible organic vapor. The input parameters for the solution are the pure vapor adsorption isotherms quantified using the Qi, Hay and Rood (QHR) equation in Qi et al. (J. Environ. Eng., 124(11);1998:1130) for water, and the Dubinin–Radushkevich equation in Dubinin (Progress in Surface and Membrane Science, vol. 9, 1975, Academic Press) for the organic chemical. The solution employs a simple algorithm of decrement search and requires the least possible number of iterations in calculation. Predicted results compare favorably with the adsorption data for benzene in the relative humidity range 0–90%. This numerical approach is straightforward and better suited than the original graphical technique for use in dynamic simulation of activated carbon adsorbers.