Adsorption Equilibrium and Kinetics of CO₂ and H₂O on Activated Carbon

Activated carbon is well applied in pressure swing adsorption process for CO 2 capture. The real flue gas contains saturated water vapor as well. In this study, single and binary components adsorption equilibrium and kinetics of H 2O/CO 2 were studied according to their adsorption isotherms and breakthrough curves. Results showed that activated carbon could adsorb high amount of CO 2 and low amount of N 2, that showed a good CO 2/N 2 selectivity. As activated carbon contains the functional groups, the activated carbon can adsorb large amount water at high water partial pressure. However, because of different CO 2 adsorption mechanism, water adsorption has almost no impact on CO 2 adsorption on activated carbon. The kinetics study showed that CO 2 adsorption velocity on activated carbon is much faster than that of H 2O.