Heat and Mass Transfer of Water During Activated Carbon Adsorption

Abstract In order to investigate the dynamic process of the heat and mass transfer phenomenon of water vapor on activated carbon, a fixed‐column adsorption unit and two kinds of activated carbon were used as adsorbent for water vapor adsorption under the adsorption temperature 293.15 K, 303.15 K and 313.15 K, respectively. A coupled model was developed by mass and energy balance, mass transfer and simplified DO adsorption equilibrium equation. The effects of physical parameters on heat and mass transfer were theoretically investigated. Results show that the numerical model match well with the experimental data ( R 2 >0.993). The axial diffusion coefficient ( D L ) increases from 1.226×10 −6 m 2 s −1 to 4.062×10 −6 m 2 s −1 for RAC and 1.425×10 −6 m 2 s −1 to 4.030×10 −6 m 2 s −1 for MAC, mass transfer coefficient ( k ) increases from 8.171 s −1 to 27.083 s −1 for RAC and 9.499 s −1 to 26.864 s −1 for MAC. Concurrently, the breakthrough time of adsorption water vapor gradually shorten from 1000 s to 780 s with temperature increasing from 293.15 K to 313.15 K. The effect of axial diffusion coefficient (D L ) on mass transfer is not obvious. Furthermore, the influence of the mass transfer coefficient ( k ) on temperature variation rate surpasses that of the internal heat transfer coefficient ( h ).