Determination of toluene adsorption on different type commercial activated carbon filters

The major objectives of this study were as follows: a) set-up of an experimental test system to study the adsorption performance for removal of toluene as a representative VOC by commercially available activated carbons, b) Obtain and compare activated carbon performance by efficiency under varying operating conditions such as inlet concentration, types of activated carbon and their properties. Among different experimental methods, the most suitable method was applied to evaluate toluene adsorption performance for activated carbons. Commercially available activated carbons performances were investigated using static volumetric-closed loop system with toluene as a representative VOC. In this study, the effects of morphology of activated carbon, specific surface area of the activated carbon, injection concentration of toluene and air-toluene mixture flow rate on the filter performance were experimentally investigated. The adsorption experiments were carried out under various operating conditions. The conditions determined as, temperature 27±3 ºC, 10-15% RH, with constant toluene inlet concentrations of 500 ppm and 1000 ppm and weight of adsorbent 3-4 g. The temperature, relative humidity and gas flow rate were not controlled during experiments. These variables are only monitored with sensors and flowmeter. Generally, it has been found out that it is not only one factor which is controlling the overall efficiency. Various parameters combination (physical properties, contaminant (toluene) inlet concentration, surface area of activated carbon, gas flow rate etc.) are controlled the overall adsorption process.