Fixed-Bed Capacitor for Adsorber Peak Dampening
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing adsorption processes in gas or liquid separation systems face challenges in managing peak contaminant concentrations, leading to breakthrough into product streams, which necessitates larger adsorber sizes and increased regeneration requirements, thus increasing operational and capital costs.
Innovation Solution
Integrating a fixed-bed capacitor into the adsorption cycle to dampen product composition peaks, allowing for reduced adsorber size and lower regeneration flow rates by processing the product stream from individual adsorbers in a cyclic manner, combined with a bypass option to manage breakthrough.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of moving object
If adsorption time is extended to allow contaminant breakthrough, then adsorber size can be reduced, but product specification may be violated at peak concentrations
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the adsorption process into multiple parallel adsorber beds that operate in sequence, with each bed handling a portion of the feed stream. This segmentation allows the system to maintain smaller individual bed sizes while ensuring that at least one bed is always in a high-performance state to meet product specifications.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements periodic switching between multiple adsorber beds, where each bed cycles through adsorption and regeneration phases. By strategically timing the switching and using a capacitor to dampen concentration peaks, the system ensures that product specifications are met during the adsorption phase while allowing controlled breakthrough later, thus reducing required bed size.
2Ease of manufacture
If adsorber size is reduced to lower capital costs, then peak contaminant concentrations increase, but this requires more stringent control to meet product specifications
Solution Approach 1:
A capacitor is introduced as an intermediary device in the product stream to dampen contaminant concentration peaks. This capacitor acts as a buffer that smooths out fluctuations in contaminant levels, allowing smaller adsorber beds to be used while automatically maintaining product specification compliance without requiring complex real-time control systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The capacitor automatically dampens concentration peaks based on its inherent electrical properties when integrated into the process control system. This self-regulating mechanism reduces the need for external control interventions and simplifies the overall control system while enabling the use of smaller, more cost-effective adsorber beds.
3Quantity of substance
If adsorber size is reduced, then regeneration requirements decrease, but peak contaminant loads on the adsorbent increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary contaminant removal in the first adsorber bed before the stream reaches subsequent beds or regeneration phases. By pre-removing a significant portion of contaminants, the peak load on any single bed is reduced, allowing for smaller bed sizes and lower regeneration flow rates while still handling the total contaminant quantity effectively.
Solution Approach 2:
The contaminant removal task is segmented across multiple adsorber beds operating in sequence. Each bed handles a portion of the total contaminant load, which distributes the peak loads and allows each individual bed to be smaller with correspondingly lower regeneration requirements, while the system as a whole maintains effective contaminant removal.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Achieves uniform product composition, reducing adsorbent and regeneration flow needs, resulting in significant cost savings and efficient operation.
Implementation Method 1
When a fluid stream enters a fixed bed adsorber, the components that are more strongly adsorbed will be retained by the adsorbent
Implementation Method 2
the adsorption process is dynamic in nature, as the feed to the adsorber has to be stopped after a certain period of time when the adsorber is saturated with the strongly adsorbed components
Data Source
Figure 1~3
Figure 4
Figure 5~6
AI summary
This invention uses a fixed-bed adsorber, interchangeably called a capacitor herein, to process the product stream coming out of a regenerable adsorption system such as a temperature swing adsorption system (TSA) or pressure swing adsorption system (PSA). The fluid stream coming out of this fixed-bed capacitor will have a more uniform composition than the one entering the adsorption system or the capacitor. The fixed-bed adsorber operates in a once-through non-cyclic manner, similar to a conventional fixed bed reactor or adsorber.