AN EQUILIBRIUM THEORY OF PARAMETRIC PUMP

Very large separation factors have been obtained by Wilhelm and his co-workers using cycling flow of a binary mixture upward and downward through a column containing a fixed bed of solid adsorbent which is alternately heated and cooled. The theory of such separations is developed here on the assumption of local equilibrium between solid and fluid phases. The origin of the separation is the ability of the solid phase to store solute deposited on it by fluid flowing from the bottom of the column and to release this solute later into another fluid stream which flows into the column from a top reservoir containing enriched mixture. The proposed mechanism takes into account the difference in the speeds of propagation of concentration waves through the packing during upward and downward flow. © 1969, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.