Hydrophobic zeolite adsorbent: A proven advancement in solvent separation technology

Abstract

Abstract With the passage of the Clean Air Act Amendment (CAAA) of 1990, solvent emission regulations continue to become ever more stringent. An ongoing and increasingly strong incentive exists to develop and apply to the solvent emission control industry more efficient and cost effective control technologies. This paper presents a new technology used for solvent separation and concentration, hydrophobic zeolite adsorbent. Because of its unique physical properties, solvent control systems using hydrophobic zeolite may exhibit separation capacity equal to or better than systems using activated carbon without requiring much of the support equipment. Though activated carbon remains the adsorbent of choice for many applications, hydrophobic zeolite represents an efficient alternative for many niche applications. Extensive tests have proven its capabilities and the results are presented here. Also presented is the modular solvent concentrator (MSC) designed to handle up to 50,000 scfm (79,000 Nm 3 /h)—up to 50% more air flow as current concentrators—in the same area. The MSC is flexible enough to handle any currently available adsorbent. Several case studies are presented to illustrate use of hydrophobic zeolite as well as the MSC.