Evaluation of pressure-temperature swing adsorption for sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) recovery from SF6 and N2 gas mixture

The separation/concentration of SF₆, a strong greenhouse gas, of 1.3% in N₂ was investigated using pressure-temperature swing adsorption (PTSA) with activated carbon. To screen an effective adsorbent to be used for PTSA, adsorption isotherms on the selected adsorbents were obtained. Among the studied adsorbents, AC-1, a coconut-shell based commercial activated carbon, showed the largest adsorption amount of 3.5 mmol-SF₆/g-carbon at 303.65 K and 3 atm and the highest selectivity among the adsorbents tested. Its adsorption isotherm was well fit into Langmuir-Freundlich model. Before feasibility test of PTSA, a series of experiments were performed to investigate the effect of operating parameters including adsorption pressure, feed flow rate, desorption temperature and evacuation time on the PTSA performance using the 3-step PTSA cycle (pressurization, adsorption and regeneration-recovery). As the adsorption pressure, desorption temperature and evacuation time were increased, respectively, purity and recovery increased. Increasing the feed flow rate resulted in low purity and recovery. The maximum purity of 19.5% and recovery of 50.1% were obtained with adsorption pressure of 2.5 atm, desorption temperature of 200 °C and evacuation of 1 hour.