PURIFICATION OF AIR, WATER AND OFF GAS · SOLVENT RECOVERY

Activated Carbon for Solvent Recovery

K. -D. Henning J. Degel

Paper presented at the Meeting of the European Rotogravure Association Engineers GroupMulhouse/France. 20/21 March 1990

Activated Carbon for Solvent Recovery

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Activated Carbon
  3. Fundamentals of Adsorption and Desorption
  4. Adsorption systems for solvent recovery
  5. Toluene Recovery Plant
  6. Process Conditions and Activated Carbon Types

1. Introduction

Ladies and Gentleman
May I first remit my sincerest thanks to the organization committee for the invitation and the opportunity of speaking to this audience.

May I introduce my company and myself to you:
Carbo-Tech GmbH, formerly Bergwerksverband GmbH, is a medium-size German enterprise with approx. 230 staff, producing activated carbons, polyurethane-based special products, and thiocyanates. The company`s total turnover is of approx. 120 Mio DM per year.

As for activated carbon, the product of interest here:

For more than 30 years we produce cylindrically shaped activated carbon pellets for gas and water purification.

As for myself: for 15 years now I have been entrusted with various tasks concerning the use of activated carbon for solvent recovery and water purification.I am responsible for quality, improvement, and application technology in our activated carbon department.

My speech is structured as can be seen from Figure l.

Activated Carbon for Solvent Recovery
Activated Carbon
  • Manufacturing
  • Adsorption properties
  • Market
Concept of Solvent Recovery
  • Adsorption
  • Desorption
Toluene recovery plant
Selection of activated carbon
  • pressure drop
  • relative humidity
  • pore size distribution
  • adsorption isotherm
  • working capacity
Carbo-Tech GmbH
Elisenstr. 119, D-4300 Essen 1, FRG

Figure l: Activated Carbon for the Solvent Recovery

May I first report on the manufacturing and properties of activated carbon. I am sure that you are also interested in some information on the activated-carbon market. For a better understanding of what happens in plants for solvent recovery, I will briefly discuss the physio-chemical phenomena of adsorption.

Also desorption of the spent activated carbon will be described.

You all know plants for adsorptive solvent recovery. Yesterday we had the opportunity of visiting jointly one of them.

Subsequently, I should like to present some results of investigations carried out in our company with respect to the choice of suitable activated carbon qualities. I should like to show you, by means of some examples, how the operation costs for solvent recovery plants are influenced by the process conditions and the pore structure of the activated carbon. May I start by defining of the term "activated carbon".

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