This study combined photocatalytic technology with activated carbon adsorption to decompose gaseous pollutants. Gaseous pollutants were initially adsorbed and concentrated by activated carbon and could be further decomposed more effectively by photocatalytic technology. This study coated TiO2 on the activated carbon fiber (ACF) by a sol-gel process for conducting the adsorption and decomposition of acetone in a batch reactor. Operating parameters investigated in this study included the initial concentration of acetone (13.6 £gM and 27.2 £gM), reaction temperature (50¢J~70¢J), oxygen concentration (0.5%~20%), and water vapor (0 £gM~244.9 £gM). The incident UV light of 365 nm was irradiated by a 15-watt low-pressure mercury lamp placing above the photocatalytic batch reactor. The ACF coated with TiO2 was placed in the center of the reactor. Acetone was injected into the reactor to conduct photocatalytic tests. Reactants and products were analyzed quantitatively by a gas chromatography with electron capture detector (GC/ECD) and a flame ionization detector followed by a methaneizer (GC/FID-Methaneizer). Results from the photocatalysis tests indicated that, among the commercial TiO2 (Degussa P-25), NO3-/TiO2 and SO42-/TiO2, SO42-/TiO2 had the best photoactivity reduced acetone concentration and reaction time substantially. The end products was mainly CO2 and CO, which resulted in the mineralization ratio above 95%. Results from the operating parameter tests revealed that the increase of the initial acetone concentration enhanced the amount of acetone adsorbed on the ACF, which however did not increase the reaction rate of acetone. Although the increase of reaction temperature could reduce the amount of acetone adsorbed on the ACF, decomposition rate of acetone could be promoted, so as the yield rate and mineralization ratio of products (CO2 and CO). Increasing oxygen concentration did not influence the decomposition significantly except for oxygen concentration lower than 1%. The increase of water vapor would slightly decrease the amount of acetone adsorbed on the ACF, which did not decrease the decomposition of acetone anyway. This study revealed that the decomposition of acetone on TiO2/ACF can enhance the mass transfer of acetone substantially.

Abstract Ammonia is one of valuable chemicals which are commonly used in various industrial factors. It is also a typical pollutant, and has a long-term impact on human health for toxicity characteristics. This study was to investigate the performance, product selectivity and kinetics in oxidation of ammonia solution in WAO process over Cu/ACF catalyst. The operation parameters in continuous WAO process were performed as follows: initial concentration of ammonia in ranging from 200 ppm to 1000 ppm, pH at 12, velocity of influent at below 3.0 ml/min, temperature ranging from 443K to 463K and pressure at 3.0 MPa. In the experiments of catalyst selection, we decided to use 5% Cu/ACF catalyst for its high conversion and selectivity in oxidation of ammonia. A conversion of 95.42% in oxidation of ammonia was achieved under 463K and the product selectivity of N2 was raised from 53% to 85%. We found that Cu/ACF and ACF catalysts both had the good conversion and selectivity in oxidation of ammonia in WAO process. In the long-term test of catalyst stability, Cu/ACF had a bad stability after 48 hours reaction in WAO process. The tests such as XRD, SEM and EA were also determined. The kinetics of WAO over Cu/ACF catalyst in oxidation of ammonia using Power-Rate Law was presented. The apparent reaction order and activated energy were obtained.

No description available.

Heat actuated adsorption heat pumps offer the opportunity to improve overall energy efficiency in waste heat applications by eliminating shaft work requirements accompanying vapor compression cycles. The coefficient of performance (COP) in adsorption heat pumps is generally low. The objective of this thesis is to model the adsorption system to gain critical insight into how its performance can be improved. Because adsorption heat pumps are intermittent devices, which induce cooling by adsorbing refrigerant in a sorption bed heat/mass exchanger, transient models must be used to predict performance. In this thesis, such models are developed at the adsorbent particle level, heat/mass exchanger component level and system level. Adsorption heat pump modeling is a coupled heat and mass transfer problem. Intra-particle mass transfer resistance and sorption bed heat transfer resistance are shown to be significant, but for very fine particle sizes, inter-particle resistance may also be important. The diameter of the adsorbent particle in a packed bed is optimized to balance inter- and intra-particle resistances and improve sorption rate. In the literature, the linear driving force (LDF) approximation for intra-particle mass transfer is commonly used in place of the Fickian diffusion equation to reduce computation time; however, it is shown that the error in uptake prediction associated with the LDF depends on the working pair, half-cycle time, adsorbent particle radius, and operating temperatures at hand. Different methods for enhancing sorption bed heat/mass transfer have been proposed in the literature including the use of binders, adsorbent compacting, and complex extended surface geometries. To maintain high reliability, the simple, robust annular-finned-tube geometry with packed adsorbent is specified in this work. The effects of tube diameter, fin pitch and fin height on thermal conductance, metal/adsorbent mass ratio and COP are studied. As one might expect, many closely spaced fins, or high fin density, yields high thermal conductance; however, it is found that the increased inert metal mass associated with the high fin density diminishes COP. It is also found that thin adsorbent layers with low effective conduction resistance lead to high thermal conductance. As adsorbent layer thickness decreases, the relative importance of tube-side convective resistance rises, so mini-channel sized tubes are used. After selecting the proper tube geometry, an overall thermal conductance is calculated for use in a lumped-parameter sorption bed simulation. To evaluate the accuracy of the lumped-parameter approach, a distributed parameter sorption bed simulation is developed for comparison. Using the finite difference method, the distributed parameter model is used to track temperature and refrigerant distributions in the finned tube and adsorbent layer. The distributed-parameter tube model is shown to be in agreement with the lumped-parameter model, thus independently verifying the overall UA calculation and the lumped-parameter sorption bed model. After evaluating the accuracy of the lumped-parameter model, it is used to develop a system-level heat pump simulation. This simulation is used to investigate a non-recuperative two-bed heat pump containing activated carbon fiber-ethanol and silica gel-water working pairs. The two-bed configuration is investigated because it yields a desirable compromise between the number of components (heat exchangers, pumps, valves, etc.) and steady cooling rate. For non-recuperative two-bed adsorption heat pumps, the average COP prediction in the literature is 0.39 for experiments and 0.44 for models. It is important to improve the COP in mobile waste heat applications because without high COP, the available waste heat during startup or idle may be insufficient to deliver the desired cooling duty. In this thesis, a COP of 0.53 is predicted for the non-recuperative, silica gel-water chiller. If thermal energy recovery is incorporated into the cycle, a COP as high as 0.64 is predicted for a 90, 35 and 7.0°C source, ambient and average evaporator temperature, respectively. The improvement in COP over heat pumps appearing in the literature is attributed to the adsorbent particle size optimization and careful selection of sorption bed heat exchanger geometry.