AIR DRYING BY PRESSURE SWING ADSORPTION

Air drying experiments by pressure swing adsorption (PSA) were carried out, using two columns packed with silica gel as adsorbent. Measurements were also made of batch adsorption of water vapor on silica gel to obtain input data for the authors'' PSA simulation program. Experimental PSA results were compared with this computer simulation. Good agreement was obtained and the trend of experimental results was well explained by simulation for both isothermal and non-isothermal cases. In the simulation, however, mass transfer coefficients two or three times larger than those estimated conventionally from batch measurement were used to obtain good coincidence. These larger mass transfer coefficients were determined by a recently developed method for short adsorption and desorption cycle.5) The simulation method is useful in predicting the performance of air drying PSA.