Adsorption hypersorption

Most adsorption systems use stationary-bed adsorbers. However, efforts have been made over the years to develop moving-bed adsorption processes in which the adsorbent is moved from an adsorption chamber to another chamber for regeneration, with countercurrent contacting of gases with the adsorbents in each chamber. Union Oil s Hypersorption Process (90) is an example. However, this process proved uneconomical, primarily because of excessive losses resulting from adsorbent attrition. 

The third and final step in both cases consisted of operating the column or tower continuously with a constant feed and constant draw-off of products. In distillation this step is represented by the large continuous fractionating columns now used in many petroleum and chemical plants. In adsorption it is represented by the Hypersorption process (8, 4, 28, 29). 

Perhaps the hypersorption process (7) of recent years may be thought new and it is new in applying the mechanical principle of continuous operation to charcoal adsorption, but such adsorption on a batch process was in use more than 25 years ago and became obsolete in competition with absorption. Now the continuous hypersorption method appears to be finding a real field of usefulness, especially in making very high recoveries of propane and in recovering substantial amounts of ethane. Recovery of ethane is beginning to be important, in connection with its use as a chemical raw material for the reactions mentioned previously in this paper. 

---