(631e) Investigating the Effect of Steam Regeneration As Rapid Temperature Swing Adsorption Method for Biobutanol Recovery Using an Activated Carbon Monolith

The use of biobutanol, which is obtained through fermentation of various organic feedstocks, as a next-generation drop-in biofuel and bio-based platform chemical has attracted a lot of interest. However, energy-intensive recovery and purification during downstream processing, due to the very low butanol concentrations attained after fermentation, are still large bottlenecks that need to be addressed before its widespread implementation.

In this study, we investigated the recovery of butanol using an activated carbon monolith in combination with steam regeneration for rapid temperature swing adsorption. The use of a monolith allows for lower pressure drop and enhances both mass and heat transfer thus enabling high throughput and lower energy costs, while steam regeneration is a widely used, energy- and cost-effective technique and is often readily available in process industries. Additionally, steam allows for a very fast heating and cooling through evaporative cooling of the monolith.

Specifically, we explored the effect of regeneration parameters such as regeneration time, steam temperature, steam flow rate, the addition of a drying step and countercurrent vs. co-current desorption on the cyclic adsorption capacity, cycle time, productivity and recovered butanol concentration. An optimization of these parameters is also performed.