Water vapor adsorption characteristics of honeycomb adsorbents

For large volume air clean-up in nuclear fusion facilities, honeycomb-type adsorbents offer a useful advantage in terms of their low-pressure drop. In this study, two different honeycomb-type adsorbents (honeycomb-K and honeycomb-N) and pebble-type adsorbents were used as samples and the water vapor adsorption performance of each adsorbent was examined by changing temperature, concentration of water vapor and flow rate. The honeycomb-K and honeycomb-N adsorbents included zeolite-4A or zeolite-5A with a 50% clay binder and with a 15% sepiolite binder, respectively. The shapes of cells in honeycomb-K and honeycomb-N are triangles with 1 mm sides and squares with 1 mm sides, respectively, and the cell densities of the both adsorbents were 200 CPSI (cells/in.2). The adsorption capacity for water vapor on the honeycomb-K adsorbent was comparable to that on the pebble-type adsorbent, while the adsorption capacity on the honeycomb-N adsorbent was lower. The adsorption rates of honeycomb-K and honeycomb-N adsorbents were higher than that of the pebble-type adsorbent. The honeycomb-K adsorbent containing zeolite-5A showed a higher adsorption rate than that containing zeolite-4A. Thus, honeycomb-K containing zeolite-5A adsorbent could be applicable to air cleanup systems in terms of both adsorption capacity and rate.