Effect of pre-adsorbed water in hydrophobic polymeric resin on adsorption equilibrium and breakthrough of 1,2-dichloroethane

Hot steam regeneration of an adsorbed bed is widely used in practical processes, so it is crucial to understand the effect of residual water contained in the adsorbent on VOCs adsorption. In this work, the influence of pre-adsorbed water in hypercrosslinked resin (HY-1) on the adsorption of 1,2-dichloroethane (DCE) was studied under both isothermal and pseudo-adiabatic conditions. Under isothermal conditions, the initial water had a slightly negative influence on adsorption capacities, and a negative influence on the breakthrough capacity lower than 9.3%, decreasing with higher DCE concentrations. Moreover, the influence of initial water in HY-1 on temperature rise and breakthrough adsorption capacities in fixed beds was also investigated under pseudo-adiabatic conditions. On the dry resin, a significant temperature rise (about 50 °C) inside the bed was observed when 200 mg/L of DCE was adsorbed. Compared to the dry resin, the temperature rise in the bed could be controlled to under 5 °C; the breakthrough adsorption capacities of DCE on the wet resin increased by 12.4–37.6%.