Experimental and numerical investigation of the effect of pellet size on the adsorption characteristics of activated carbon/ethanol

A. Elsayed, S. Mahmoud, R. Al-Dadah*, James Bowen, W. Kaialy

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)
153 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Low temperature adsorption cooling is an attractive heat powered cooling technology suitable for various applications where waste heat is available. The use of activated carbon as adsorbent with ethanol offers potential for low temperature cooling applications like the food retail industry. Activated carbons are commercially available in the form of powders, granules and pellets. Although powder materials have the advantage of good adsorption kinetics but they are difficult to integrate in adsorption beds. Pellets and granules come at various shapes and sizes and can be effectively accommodated in adsorption beds but offer slower kinetics compared to the powder form. This work experimentally and numerically investigates the effect of pellet size on the ethanol adsorption characteristics of Norit RX3 activated carbon. Dynamic vapour sorption (DVS) testing was used for measuring the adsorption isotherms and kinetics for a range of pellet lengths ranging from 3mm to 12mm. COMSOL Multiphysics was used to simulate the adsorption effect taking into account the diffusion process. Results showed that increasing the pellet dimension in terms of diameter and length reduces the adsorption kinetics.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2327-2330
Number of pages4
JournalEnergy Procedia
Volume61
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2014
Event6th International Conference on Applied Energy, ICAE 2014 - Taipei, Taiwan, Province of China
Duration: 30 May 20142 Jun 2014

Keywords

  • Activated carbon
  • Adsorbent
  • Adsorption kinetics
  • COMSOL
  • Ethanol

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Energy

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