Development of thermally conductive packing for gas separation Original Research Article

A new highly thermally conductive composite material made of activated carbon in-situ activated within a consolidated expanded natural graphite (CENG) matrix is developed in the specific case of gas separation processes. According to the particular chosen testing case of CO2/N2 mixture, the microporous characteristics of the adsorbent fraction have been selected and the various properties of the whole material studied. Activated carbon effective densities, overall thermal conductivities and external heat transfer coefficients up to 650 kg×m−3, 32 W×m−1×K−1 and 3000 W×m−2×K−1 were obtained, respectively. Two macroscopic external shapes were realized, namely a corrugated-sheets static mixer and a multi-axial-diffuser cylindrical monolith which will be further tested in a pilot equipment for comparison with conventional adsorbents.