Research Progress of Gaseous Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Purification by Adsorption

Xiong Yang,Chuanzhao Zhang,Jinchao Wei,Ziyi Li,Chuen-Jinn Tsai,Ralph T Yang,Bentao Yang,Yi Xing,Yingshu Liu

doi:10.4209/aaqr.2018.11.0398

Abstract

ABSTRACT Gaseous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are carcinogenic and mutagenic pollutants and also able to promote the growth of secondary particulate matters, which have attracted great attention in recent years. Control of PAHs emissions in exhaust gases using different techniques has been hot topics in the atmospheric environment field. Adsorption is one of the most effective ones and is well accepted by industries in gaseous pollutant removal in which the adsorbent characteristics play critical roles. In this paper, the latest advances in the field of PAHs adsorption are critically reviewed with special emphasis on adsorption-desorption characteristics and related applications. Studies on adsorption equilibrium, kinetics, and desorption properties of PAHs as special low-volatile gases on conventional activated carbons and novel mesoporous adsorbents are summarized and compared, showing the advantages of mesoporous adsorbents over traditional adsorbents in terms of the fast adsorption and facile desorption. The significant factors on the optimal balance between adsorption and desorption as well as the corresponding adsorbent materials are discussed in detail. This work can be a reference for further studies on adsorptive purifications of PAHs and other low-volatile gases.

Highlights

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, polyaromatic hydrocarbons or polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons) are hydrocarbons—organic compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen—that are composed of multiple aromatic rings
This paper focuses on introductions, comparisons and evaluations of various polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) adsorbents and related characteristics, and proposes a prospect for the development of PAHs adsorption purification technology
The works of Yang et al (2015), Liu et al (2016) and Li et al (2017b), and studied the adsorption equilibrium of naphthalene, phenanthrene and pyrene on MCM-41, SBA-15 and CMK-3, respectively, demonstrating that sufficient micropores are the key factors in PAHs adsorption enhancement, and the importance of the mesoporous pore volume and pore size distribution grows with increasing PAH molecular weight

Summary

Introduction

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, polyaromatic hydrocarbons or polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons) are hydrocarbons—organic compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen—that are composed of multiple aromatic rings (organic rings in which the electrons are delocalized). Activated carbons as a type of adsorbents are widely accepted in industry due to the low price and great PAHs adsorption capacity, and need high desorption temperatures and higher regeneration energy consumption due to the rich microporosity.

Results

Conclusion