Determining state of saturation of adsorption column in molecular adsorption filter comprises injecting tracer upstream of filter and detecting it downstream when column is saturated

摘要

Upstream of an adsorption column, a tracer is injected which has an affinity to occupy the small adsorption sites which are obstructed successively through the adsorption column by the pollutants the filter is trapping. When the tracer cannot find any available sites, it leaves downstream of the filter and is detected by an appropriate detector. The injection of the tracer is started cyclically by a manual or automatic action. The tracer is a butane molecule (CH3CH2CH2CH3) or its isomers, or can be propane, pentane, cyclopentane, ethane, methane, or from the alkenes, it can be pentene or its isomers, butene and its isomers, propene, ethane ethylene, or from the alkynes, butyne and isomers, propyne and ethyne acetylene. The tracer is chosen from molecules which have an affinity for small sites in the adsorption column. The detector is selected to recognize the trace molecule.