Sorbents activated alumina

Some authors have studied the effects of treatment with solid sorbents. Activated alumina was found to be very effective for secondary cleanup after alkaline scrubbing to remove compounds responsible for the decrease of interfacial tension and the complexing of plutonium. The drying of the solvent improves the capacity of activated alumina (102, 150, 151). 

Certain chemicals (sorbents) have the ability to absorb moisture from a gas they may be either solid or liquid. Performance of a chemical dehumidifi cation device depends on the sorbent used. The sorbent must t>e able to attract and remove the sorbate, such as water, from the gas stream, Stirbems absorb water on the surface of the material by adsorption or by chemically combining with water (absorption). If the unit is regenerative, the process is reversible, allowing water to be removed. This is achieved by a sorbent such as silica gel, alumina gel, activated alumina, lithium chloride salt, lithium chloride solution, glycol solution, or molecular sieves. In the case of nonregenerative equipment, hygroscopic salts such as calcium chloride, urea, or sodium chloride are used. 

Characteristics of attrition and adsorption were investigated to remove CO2 in fluidized hed using activated carhon, activated alumina, molecular sieve 5 A and molecular sieve 13X. For every dry sorbent, attrition mainly still occurs in the early stage of fluidization and attrition indexs(AI) of molecular sieve 5A and molecular sieve 13X were higher than those of activated carbon and activated alumina. Percentage loss of adsorption capacity of molecular sieve 5A and molecular 13X were 14.5% and 13.5%, but that of activated carbon and activated alumina were 8.3% and 8.1%, respectively. Overall attrition rate constant (Ka) of activated alumina and activated carbon were lower than other sorbents. 

Therefore, in this study, activated carbon, activated alumina, molecular sieve 5A, and molecular sieve 13X were used as dry sorbents to control carbon dioxide in a fluidized bed. In addition, the attrition and percentage loss of adsorption capacity of the dry sorbents were investigated. 

Fig. 1 shows that minimum fluidization velocities of activated carbon, activated alumina, molecular sieve 5A and molecular sieve 13X are 8.0 cm/s, 8.5 cm/s, 6.2 cm/s and 6.5 cm/s, respectively. Also, theoretical calculation values of minimum fluidization velocity and terminal velocity of each dry sorbent were summarized in Table 1. 

Table 2 summaries overall attrition rate constants (Ka) and physical properties for each dry sorbent. As shown in Table 2, Ka of activated alumina was the lower than any other sorbent, but was similar to activated carbon. However, we used activated carbon as dry sorbent to control CO2 because it is the most cost-effective among others.

Defluoridation processes can be classified into four main groups Adsorption methods, in these methods sorbents such as bone charcoal, activated alumina and clay are used in column or batch systems. Ion-exchange methods, these methods require expensive commercial ion-exchange resins. Coprecipitation and... 

This chapter discusses the fundamental principles for designing nanoporous adsorbents and recent progress in new sorbent materials. For sorbent design, detail discussion is given on both fundamental interaction forces and the effects of pore size and geometry on adsorption. A summary discussion is made on recent progress on the following types of materials as sorbents activated carbon, activated alumina, silica gel, MCM-41, zeolites, n -complexation sorbents, carbon nano tubes, heteropoly compounds, and pillared clays. 2001 Academic Press. 

There are only four types of sorbents that have dominated the commercial use of adsorption activated carbon, molecular-sieve zeolites, sihca gel, and activated alumina. Estimates of worldwide annual sales of these sorbents are as follows (Humphry and Keller, 1997) ... 

The commercial alumina and silica gel sorbents are mesoporous, i.e., with pores mostly larger than 20 A (see Fig. 1). Activated alumina is produced by thermal dehydration or activation of aluminum trihydroxide, A1 (OH)3 (Yang, 1997), and is crystalline. Commercially, silica is prepared by mixing a sodium silicate solution with a mineral acid such as sulfuric or hydrochloric acid. The reaction produces a concentrated dispersion of finely divided particles of hydrated Si02, known as silica hydrosol or silicic acid ... 

Some industrial processes produce predominately latent air conditioning loads. Others dictate very low humidities and when the dew point falls below 0°C, freezing becomes a major concern. Dehydration equipment, using solid sorbents such as silica gel and activated alumina, or liquid sorbents such as lithium cliloride brine and trietliylene glycol, may be used. The process is exothermic and may require cooling the exiting air stream to meet space requirements. Heat is also required for reactivation of the sorbent material. 

During the last decade, there have been several published accounts on using adsorption for liquid fuel desulfurization. Commercially available sorbents (i.e., zeolites, activated carbon and activated alumina) were used in all of these studies. Weitkamp et al. 

First results on n-complexation sorbents for desulfurization with Ag-Y and Cu(I)-Y zeolites have been reported recently [3,4]. In this work, we included the known commercial sorbents such as Na-Y, Na-ZSMS, H-USY, activated carbon and activated alumina (Alcoa Selexsorb) and made a direct comparison with Cu(l)-Y and Ag-Y which were the sorbents with n-complexation capability. Thiophene and benzene vapors were used as the model system for desulfurization. Although most of these studies can be applied directly to liquid phase problems, Cu-Y (auto-reduced) and Ag-Y zeolites were also used to separate liquid mixtures of thiophene/benzene, thiophene/n-octane, and thiophene/benzene/n-octane at room temperature and atmospheric pressure using fixed-bed adsorption/breakthrough techniques. These mixtures were chosen to understand the adsorption behavior of sulfur compounds present in hydrocarbon liquid mixtures and to study the performance of the adsorbents in the desulfurization of transportation fuels. Moreover, a technique for regeneration of the adsorbents was developed in this study [4]. 

Various kinds of sorbents were investigated in this work. Four as-received sorbents Na-type Y-zeolite (Si/Al=2.43, Strem Chemical), H-type ultra-stable Y-zeolite (Si/Al=195, TOSOH Corporation), activated carbon (Type PCB, Calgon Carbon Corporation) and modified activated alumina (Selexsorb CDX, Alcoa Industrial Chemical), were used in this study. According to the product datasheets, Selexsorb CDX is formulated for adsorption of sulfur-based molecules, nitrogen-based molecules, and oxygenated hydrocarbon molecules. Na-Y and H-USY were in powder form (binderless). Since activated carbon was in granular form and activated alumina was in pellet form, they were crushed into powder form for evaluation. 

An excellent review and detailed coverage on commercial adsorbents and new adsorbent materials has been presented by Yang in his newly published monograph on adsorbents.A very brief overview of existing commercial adsorbents is given here. Commercial sorbents that have been used in large-scale adsorptive separation and purification processes include activated carbon, zeolites, activated alumina, silica gel, and polymeric adsorbents. Although the worldwide sales of sorbent materials are relatively small as compared with other chemical commodities, sorbents and adsorption processes play a very important role in many process industries. The estimated worldwide sales of these sorbents are as follows ... 

Physical sorbents for carbon dioxide separation and removal were extensively studied by industrial gas companies. Zeolite 13X, activated alumina, and their improved versions are typically used for removing carbon dioxide and moisture from air in either a TSA or a PSA process. The sorption temperatures for these applications are usually close to ambient temperature. There are a few studies on adsorption of carbon dioxide at high temperatures. The carbon dioxide adsorption isotherms on two commercial sorbents hydrotalcite-like compounds, EXM911 and activated alumina made by LaRoche Industries, are displayed in Fig. 8.F23,i24] shown in Fig. 8, LaRoche activated alumina has a higher carbon dioxide capacity than the EXM911 at 300° C. However, the adsorption capacities on both sorbents are too low for any practical applications in carbon dioxide sorption at high temperature. Conventional physical sorbents are basically not effective for carbon dioxide capture at flue gas temperature (> 400°C). There is a need to develop effective sorbents that can adsorb carbon dioxide at flue gas temperature to significantly reduce the gas volume to be treated for carbon sequestration. 

Fig. 8 Adsorption isotherms of carbon dioxide on commercial sorbents. (A) Hydrotalcite-like compound, EXM911 (B) LaRoche Industries activated alumina at 20, 200, and 300°C. (From Refs. -i l)...

Existing commercial sorbents including activated carbon, zeolites, activated alumina, and silica gels will 2. 

Table 7.1 lists the typical sorbents used their uses as well as strengths and weaknesses. The four major commercial adsorbents are the following zeolite molecular sieves (zms), activated alumina, silica gel, and activated carbon. The surfaces of activated alumina and most molecular-sieve zeolites are hydrophilic, and will preferentially adsorb water over organic molecules. Silicalite, which is a hydrophobic zeolite, is the main exception. Activated carbon, on the other hand, preferentially adsorbs organic and non-polar or weakly polar compounds over water. The surface of silica gel is somewhere in between these limits and has affinity for both water and organics. Detailed information about each of these classes of adsorbents can be found in Refs. [1,4, 6, 7]. 

Rounbehler et al. have examined several types of sorbents for their ability to collect and retain quantitatively a variety of volatile nitrosamines under simulated air-sampling conditions. Also, the artifactual formation of nitrosamines from trapped amines and air containing nitrogen oxides were studied. The dry solid sorbents included activated charcoal, activated alumina, silica gel, Florisil, Tenax, and ThermoSorb/N cartridges. It was found that a ThermoSorb/N cartridge was the only sorbent which was both free of artifact formation and capable of retaining 100% of the preloaded nitrosamines. 

Elution of the sorbent is carried out using organic solvents such as ethylacetate, methanol, acetonitrile, or mixtures of solvents. Frequently, the eluent is concentrated to achieve higher sensitivity and the final extract is analysed without any additional treatment. Nevertheless, when analysing heavily contaminated samples, some authors have included a extract cleanup step using activated alumina. ° The recoveries obtained were satisfactory in several applications, as can be seen in Table 28.6. 

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