Adsorption systems water

Still another type of adsorption system is that in which either a proton transfer occurs between the adsorbent site and the adsorbate or a Lewis acid-base type of reaction occurs. An important group of solids having acid sites is that of the various silica-aluminas, widely used as cracking catalysts. The sites center on surface aluminum ions but could be either proton donor (Brpnsted acid) or Lewis acid in type. The type of site can be distinguished by infrared spectroscopy, since an adsorbed base, such as ammonia or pyridine, should be either in the ammonium or pyridinium ion form or in coordinated form. The type of data obtainable is illustrated in Fig. XVIII-20, which shows a portion of the infrared spectrum of pyridine adsorbed on a Mo(IV)-Al203 catalyst. In the presence of some surface water both Lewis and Brpnsted types of adsorbed pyridine are seen, as marked in the figure. Thus the features at 1450 and 1620 cm are attributed to pyridine bound to Lewis acid sites, while those at 1540... 

A recently developed drying appHcation for zeoHtes is the prevention of corrosion in mufflers (52,55). Internal corrosion in mufflers is caused primarily by the condensation of water and acid as the system cools. A unique UOP zeoHte adsorption system takes advantage of the natural thermal cycling of an automotive exhaust system to desorb the water and acid precursors. 

Other types of regenerators designed for specific adsorption systems may use solvents and chemicals to remove susceptible adsorbates (51), steam or heated inert gas to recover volatile organic solvents (52), and biological systems in which organics adsorbed on the activated carbon during water treatment are continuously degraded (53). 

Applications of carbon adsorption go far beyond conventional water treatment applications which we will discuss in a general sense shortly. Table 8 provides a summary of the key applications of carbon adsorption systems for liquid phase applications. 

Although the relationship of sediment adsorption to water concentration appears to be a controlling feature of shallow water systems such as lakes and coastal shelf water, the open ocean is more likely to contain soluble plutonium which seems to be unaffected by particulate matter. This is particularly evident in two oceanographic studies. Bowen et al have discovered a stratum of plutonium in the North Pacific at about 500m that has not changed depth appreciably from 1973 to 1980. How it arrived at this depth is subject to conjecture but it appears to be soluble plutonium which is not settling(17). Fukai et al have delineated plutonium maxima in the Mediterranean Sea which seem to be due to soluble species(18). Comparison of americium to plutonium ratios in this... 

The conformity to laws of adsorption, in particular their thermodynamic fundamentals, is independent of whether a water-air or a water-apolar oil interface is considered, provided that the surfactant is soluble only in one phase. If the oil phase in a liquid two-phase system is apolar, this condition is valid for many surfactants. Thus, all surfactants with an adequate solubility in water are almost insoluble in the hydrocarbon phase. If this condition is not met, e.g., in the system water-amyl alcohol, the thermodynamically based adsorption isotherms are more complicated to set up [39]. 

The application of open sorption systems can provide dehumidification by the adsorption of water vapor and sensible cooling by adiabatic humidification (after a cold recovery for the dried air) at temperatures between 16 °C and 18 °C. Conventional systems have to reach temperature as low as 6 °C or lower in order to start dehumidification by condensation. For comfort reasons this cold air has to be heated up to about 18 °C before released into the building. This shows that open sorption systems can provide in general an energetically preferable solution. 

For effective volatilization using an enclosed mechanical aeration system, contaminated soil is mixed in a pug mill or rotary drum. The gasoline components are released from the soil matrix by the churning action of the air/soil contact. The induced airflow within the chamber captures the gasoline emissions and passes them through an air pollution control device (e.g., a water scrubber or vapor-phase carbon adsorption system) before they are discharged through a properly sized stack. 

In pharmaceutical systems, both heat and mass transfer are involved whenever a phase change occurs. Lyophilization (freeze-drying) depends on the solid-vapor phase transition of water induced by the addition of thermal energy to a frozen sample in a controlled manner. Lyophilization is described in detail in Chapter 16. Similarly, the adsorption of water vapor by pharmaceutical solids liberates the heat of condensation, as discussed in Chapter 17. 

There may be problems from other adsorbing species in the house. Carbon-dioxide and water vapor have been found to have an adverse effect on the adsorption coefficient (Strong and Levins, 1978 Siegwarth et al., 1972). The likeliest place for indoor radon to accumulate in houses is in the basement or crawl space where a large surface area is in direct contact with the soil, and thus the most likely place to put an adsorption system is in these locations. However, these areas are also commonly used to store various household chemicals such as painting supplies, etc. These household items stored in basements can release contaminants that may be classified into 4 broad categories aromatics, paraffins,... 

Our model for the adsorption of water on silicates was developed for a system with few if any interlayer cations. However, it strongly resembles the model proposed by Mamy (12.) for smectites with monovalent interlayer cations. The presence of divalent interlayer cations, as shown by studies of smectites and vermiculites, should result in a strong structuring of their primary hydration sphere and probably the next nearest neighbor water molecules as well. If the concentration of the divalent cations is low, then the water in interlayer space between the divalent cations will correspond to the present model. On the other hand, if the concentration of divalent cations approaches the number of ditrigonal sites, this model will not be applicable. Such a situation would only be found in concentrated electrolyte solutions. 

This discussion lays out the basic concepts involved in design using water as the subject contaminant. In the next sections we examine a handful of commercially relevant adsorptive separations. We find that the design ideas are all readily transferable but that in each application there are additional special considerations that enter into the sizing of the adsorption system. 

Nonpolar Parameters. In a reverse osmosis system involving cellulose acetate membranes and aqueous solutions of hydrocarbon solutes, the adsorption of water and that of solute on the polar and nonpolar sites of the membrane surface respectively may be expected to take place essentially independently. Further, since the polymer-solute interaction forces are attractive in nature for the above case, the mobility of the solute molecules through the membrane pore is retarded, and they also tend to agglomerate... 

Taylor and Sickman (31) measured the adsorption of water on ZnO in the neighborhood of 634°K. Data were not available at that time to indicate the extent of the surface available, so as standard state we adopt a system containing 1.03 cc. (measured at N.T.P.) per g. of adsorbent. As far as may be ascertained from isotherms, this represents the surface about half covered. The thermodynamic quantities for this adsorption are given in Table XI. 

Figure Ic differs markedly from those obtained for the immersion of polar solids in water initially the heat values are small but increase with increasing amounts of preadsorbed water. Thus far, only one such curve has been reported in the literature for the system Graphon-water 90). Graphon is a graphitized carbon black which has an essentially homogeneous, homopolar surface 21). Nevertheless, a small fraction of heterogeneous sites is responsible for the limited adsorption of water on the surface of this solid. Similar curves can be expected for other hydrophobic solids.

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