1989 Volume 15 Issue 3 Pages 481-488
Within the closed system of a manned space station or similar environment, it is necessary to establish a life support system that removes CO2 produced by metabolism and produces O2. As a step in that direction, we studied a removal and concentration system of CO2 employing solid amine for adsorption and steam for desorption. We have performed basic tests on adsorption equilibria and adsorption breakthrough measurements, and have conducted continuous operational adsorption/desorption tests with a model apparatus.
The results indicated that the adsorption equilibria of CO2 and water that were adsorbed simultaneously did not affect each other. CO2 showed a Freundlich type adsorption isotherm, water a Henry type.
In addition, we obtained the dependency of these adsorption equilibria on temperature, relative humidity and CO2 concentration. We also an obtained overall mass transfer coefficient for CO2 adsorption. We then examined two solid amine packed columns (240mm internal diameter and 200mm height) to alternately perform CO2 adsorption and desorption, and confirmed that they were sufficient to remove and concentrate the amount of CO2 produced by two persons (2kg·d-1).
