A study on a two-bed six-step pressure swing adsorption (PSA)
process using zeolite 5A was
performed experimentally and theoretically for bulk separation of
H2/CO and H2/CH4
systems
(70/30 vol %) as major components in coke oven gas. When the
pressure is cycled between 1
and 11 atm at ambient temperatures, 70% H2 in the feed
could be concentrated to 99.99% in
the product with a recovery of 75.87% in the H2/CO mixture
and 80.38% in the H2/CH4 mixture.
The effects of adsorption pressure, P/F
ratio, adsorption/purge step time, and pressure
equalization step time were investigated experimentally. If the
product end of an adsorption
bed was not contaminated during the adsorption and depressurizing
pressure equalization steps,
elongation of both the adsorption and purge steps gave good adsorbent
productivity and recovery
without any decrease in purity. Certain elongations of step time
in the pressure equalization
step resulted in a better performance of a PSA process. When the
H2 mole fraction of effluent
stream during the pressure equalization step was not high, the initial
H2 purity of the adsorption
step was not good because of the contamination of the product end
section. These results were
analyzed by a mathematical model incorporating heat and momentum
balances.