Adsorption equilibrium and dynamics of gasoline vapors onto polymeric adsorbents

Abstract

The emission of gasoline vapors is becoming a significant environmental problem especially for the population-dense area and also results in a significant economic loss. In this study, adsorption equilibrium and dynamics of gasoline vapors onto macroporous and hypercrosslinked polymeric resins at 308 K were investigated and compared with commercial activated carbon (NucharWV-A 1100). The results showed that the equilibrium and breakthrough adsorption capacities of virgin macroporous and hypercrosslinked polymeric resins were lower than virgin-activated carbon. Compared with origin adsorbents, however, the breakthrough adsorption capacities of the regenerated activated carbon for gasoline vapors decreased by 58.5 % and 61.3 % when the initial concentration of gasoline vapors were 700 and 1,400 mg/L, while those of macroporous and hypercrosslinked resins decreased by 17.4 % and 17.5 %, and 46.5 % and 45.5 %, respectively. Due to the specific bimodal property in the region of micropore (0.5-2.0 nm) and meso-macropore (30-70 nm), the regenerated hypercrosslinked polymeric resin exhibited the comparable breakthrough adsorption capacities with the regenerated activated carbon at the initial concentration of 700 mg/L, and even higher when the initial concentration of gasoline vapors was 1,400 mg/L. In addition, 90 % of relative humidity had ignorable effect on the adsorption of gasoline vapors on hypercrosslinked polymeric resin. Taken together, it is expected that hypercrosslinked polymeric adsorbent would be a promising adsorbent for the removal of gasoline vapors from gas streams.