Evaluation of Air filter’s Performance and Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Removal Using Activated Carbon, Zeolite, and Organosilica

Evaluation of Air filter’s Performance and Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Removal Using Activated Carbon, Zeolite, and Organosilica

Abstract:

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Indoor air pollution is a complex subject including a wide diversity and variability of contaminants that affect human health. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are some of the most toxic chemicals detected in indoor air. In this study, the performance of commercially-available air purifier materials and a novel organosilica were tested. Batch sorption experiments with Toluene and benzene were conducted to evaluate the sorption performance of activated carbon and zeolite from a commercially-available air purifier and a novel swellable organosilica media (Osorb®) to determine the sorption capacity.  Various amounts of carbon, zeolite, and Osorb were added to the bottom of a 20 mL glass vial and small amounts of liquid VOC was added before quickly adding a crimped cap with a septa.  After the VOC was fully volatilized (within 5 minutes), the glass vials were placed in plastic centrifuge tubes and gently rotated for 24 hours to ensure mixing.  Samples were analyzed for VOC concentration using a gas chromatograph (Perkin Elmer, Clarus 580) equipped with a headspace autosampler and flame ionization detector (GC-FID). Results were modeled using Freundlich, Langmuir, and Temkin isotherm fitting techniques to interpret sorption parameters and capacities for the activated carbon, zeolite, and Osorb at different Toluene and benzene concentrations (20 to 1000 ppb). The result showed the best fitting with Freundlich isotherm adsorption. Activated carbon ‘s adsorption capacities for Toluene and benzene are 93.6 mg/kg and 32.45 mg/kg respectively.  The adsorption capacities of Osorb for Toluene and benzene are 3.49 and 2.01 mg/kg respectively. Zeolite yielded minimal adsorption capacity compared with the two other sorbents. The adsorption percentage of Toluene and benzene on activated carbon and Osorb was more than 90%. Activated carbon and Osorb are shown to be promising adsorbents for VOCs sorption in air purifiers.

Keywords: VOCs, Toluene, Benzene, Adsorption, Air filter, Activated Carbon, Osorb

1. Introduction

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a great and highly diverse group of carbon-based molecules, commonly related by their volatility at ambient temperature. VOCs are complex chemicals are recognized by their capability to evaporate readily at room temperature. The original description of VOC defined these materials according to the vapor pressure of the any compounds. The vapor pressure greater than 133.3 Pa at room temperature is explained as a determinant of volatility.  VOCs created from industry and transportation have been studied extensively, since VOCs coming from these sources have destructive effects on human health. VOCs can be emitted either from anthropogenic emissions or from natural emission. VOCs are mainly derived from human activities such as industrial procedures, construction, indoor generation and transportation (Massolo et al. 2010). Yen and Horng (2009) recognized the petrochemical industry as the largest industrial source of VOC emission, with Benzene, Toluene, xylene, propene, isobutene butane, alcohol, ketones, chlorinated compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons being the most common VOCs. Most volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic posing a severe threat to human health and the ecological environment. In many household products, VOCs are one of the common ingredients. Paints, varnishes, and wax all contain organic solvents, as do many cleaning, disinfecting, cosmetic and degreasing goods (Khan et al., 2000). These goods distribute the organic compounds while using them, and when they are stored. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are generated from the inner materials of an automobile, have a significant impact on human health; thus, the need to prevent them from penetrating into the human body has increased (Moon et al 2014). VOCs are considered the major cause for global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, acid rain, climate change and the formation of photochemical smog, even at concentrations as low as 1 ppb (Mohan et al. 2009). The continuous growth in VOC applications together with the stringent regulations on their use creates a growing and persistent requirement for the reduction of VOC emissions. Thus, VOC concentration is usually higher near petrochemical plants than in urban and suburban areas, which can cause adverse health effects to nearby populations. These adverse health effects include skin irritation, cyanosis, convulsions, toxicity, carcinogenicity, kidney damage, liver damage, brain damage and asthma (Wu et al. 2012).Such effects are harmful not only to human health but also to the ecosystems such as crops, vegetation and marine life (Mohamed et al. 2015). The European parliament decided to forbid its use with concentration equal to or greater than 0.1% weight, because of their harmful influence on global health (pui et al., 2017).

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VOC release can be controlled using various techniques including thermal oxidation, catalytic oxidation (Tian et al. 2012, Azalim et al. 2013, Gallastegi-Villa et al. 2013, Rooke et al. 2013, Castaño et al. 2015, Tang et al. 2015), photo-catalytic oxidation (Adjimi et al. 2014, Huang et al. 2016), biological treatments (Muñoz et al. 2013, Datta and Philip 2014, Padhi and Gokhale 2014), adsorption on porous media (Dou et al. 2011, Gironi and Piemonte 2011, Kim 2012, Gil et al. 2014, Ushiki et al. 2014), scrubbers (Biard et al. 2017) and condensation (Belaissaoui et al. 2016).There are many different air filters to remediate the indoor air of houses. The filter include sorbing materials to sorb VOCs in air. The adsorbents have special surface features to adsorb materias. Some of these different adsorbents are activate carbon, Zeolite, Carbon fiber, etc.

Activated carbon (AC) is produced from carbon-rich materials like coal, peat, lignite, petroleum pitch, wood, nutshells, etc. by the processes of carbonization and activation. It is one of the most general adsorbents due to its cost efficiency, excellent adsorption ability, and acid/base- and thermo-stability. AC applied in Environment to adsorb phenolic compounds, heavy metals, dyes from wastewater, removal of endocrine disrupting compounds, pharmaceutically activated compounds and cyanobacterial toxins in drinking water, landfill leachate treatment, adsorption of VOC and support for catalytic removal pollutants. AC has been generally applied as an adsorbent to recover different types of VOCs including alkane, alcohols, ethers, aldehydes, ketones, esters, aromatics, etc. Based on those applications, it is easy to draw the conclusion that the VOC adsorption capacity of AC ranges from a dozen to several hundreds of ppm, depending on AC’s physicochemical properties such as surface area, pore size, pore volume, chemical functional groups, etc. Due to special physical adsorption mechanisms, AC which has large surface area and rich pore structure present the high adsorption capacity to VOCs. AC is a natively nonpolar adsorbent that would certainly limit the adsorption toward hydrophilic VOCs.

One of the versatile adsorbent to remedy of VOCs is Zeolite. Zeolites are applied as an adsorbent for numerous applications.  Zeolites are porous crystalline aluminosilicates with the chemical formula M₂/_nO. Al₂O₃.ySiO₂ where n is the valence of the cation M and y may differ from two to infinite. The framework of a zeolite contains channels. Inside these voids are water molecules and small cations, which compensate the negative framework charge. Zeolite has the potential to select the different sort of molecules based on a size exclusion process (Feng et al, 2003). This feature is because of a very ordered pore structure of molecular dimensions.  Some previous studies showed the high adsorption capacity of Activated carbon and Zeolite to adsorb VOCs. Chiang et al, 2001 explained the activated carbon has high capacity to adsorb the VOCs. Li et al, 2011 report the shell based activated carbon showed high adsorption rate for removal of Hydrophobic VOCs. Li et al, 2012 investigated the chemistry of surface properties of activated carbon to adsorb VOCs. Shen et al 2013, defined the zeolite is a good adsorbent to improve indoor air.

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Other adsorbents is Osorb®, It is a new type of highly organophilic material that reversibly extracts dissolved ordispersed organic compounds with such high capacity that the sorbent can swell up to 8times its dry volume with neat organic liquids (Burkett & Edmiston, 2005). Osorb®is comprised of swellable organically modified silica, a novel hybrid organic-inorganic material that was recently discovered, and its synthesis is fully described (Burkett, Underwood, Volzer, Baughman, & Edmiston, 2008). In this study, we studied the Austin air filter structures and its sorbing materials like zeolite and Activated carbon. In addition, the new novel material like osorb was evaluated regarding its potential to be VOCs adsorbents.

2. Material and Method

Experiments conducted to evaluate performance of commercially available air purifier filter‘s materials and potential for using advanced materials. For a rapid response mitigation technique, we propose using modified room air purifiers equipped with engineered sorbents optimized to remove VOCs for structures with an immediate need based on high VOC concentrations measured by the sensor network. Although many room air purifiers are currently available, these purifiers are specific to certain pollutants and most air purifiers should not be expected to removal all gaseous pollutants found in a typical home. The most promising class of air purifiers for VOCs are those with activated carbon filters; however, there is little quantitative data available in the literature that evaluates the effectiveness of air purifiers with carbon filters for removing VOCs from air when safety thresholds have been exceeded^. In support of this aim we conducted specialized batch jar tests include different adsorbents. Subsamples of the commercially available air filter sorbent materials (e.g., activated carbon, zeolite) and other promising materials (e.g., Osorb) then be and enclosed with a septum-style lid.

2.1Material

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The Austin filter include different layers like prefilter (polycotton-cloth material), prefilter and mixed of activated carbon and zeolite and HEPA filter layer.  The different layers of Filter separated in Laboratory (2305) Department of Civil & environmental engineering. 1The mixture of activated carbon and zeolite is between blue prefilter and black stencil mesh. The external layer is polycotton-cloth material that is the flexible part of filter.

The total amount of mixture of activated carbon and zeolite were kept in container. The small amount of crashed materials were kept separately. The amount of trash material was very small. The amount of five samples includes 20g of mixed samples prepared in five different weighing dishes. After each measurement, the zeolite and activated carbon of each sample weight separately. The experiments conducted in measuring total amount of mixture of Activated carbon + Zeolite (1959.8g) using Balance (AWS, Kg-10).  The zeolite and activated carbon separated and measured separately figure. According to the result more than70 percentage of total amount of mixed material is belong to Activated Carbon while zeolite is less than 30% of mixed material (Table 1). After separation of Zeolite and Activated carbon, material rinsed by pure water to remove the layer of each material on another material. Figure 4 shows the process.

2.2 Preparation samples & Gas Chromatography Analysis:

The adsorbents used in this study are an activated carbon and zeolite (Austin Air Healthmate Plus Jr., Sylvane Co) and Osorb (ABS material, Wooster, USA). All the solvents were of GC grade (obtained from Aldrich, USA) and used without further purification. The 10 µliter syringes were purchase from Thermo Fischer scientific and Trajan Scientific & medical, Australia. Benzene and Toluene purchased from Sigma Aldrich, USA. Its purity is 99.9 %.

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2.3 Apparatus

An Auto sampler PerkinElmer Gas chromatography model Clarus 580 equipped with flame ionization detector (FID) were used to detect VOCs residues in sample. All data acquired and analyzed using Total Chrome Navigator ® software. The column used TRX5, 30 m x 0.53mm I.D, and 0.5-µm film thickness. The volume of the injection was 1 mL and the retention time of the Benzene and Toluene were 7.6 and 9.8 minutes, respectively. Carrier gas was nitrogen (99.9% purity) at a flow rate of 33mL/min. The oven temperature was 50ºC and FID was set at 230ºC respectively. The limit of detection (LOD) for Benzene and Toluene were 12ppbv and 450ppbv, respectively. An extensive laboratory experimental program was undertaken to achieve the objectives of the study.

2.4 Preparation of Benzene and Toluene’s sample and Standards:

The gas chromatography was calibrated prior to analyzing samples by six working standard of Benzene and Toluene at 20, 50. 100. 200. 500. 1000 ppb concentration levels. The calibration data were obtained by triplicate analysis. The coefficient of determination (R²) was 0.9999 and 0.9988 for Benzene and Toluene, respectively.The standard calibration curve for Benzene and Toluene was performed using a series of standard solutions. Standard solutions were prepared by a series of dilution (20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 ppbv,). All these standard solutions were then analyzed using Gas chromatography to obtain the peak areas of the Benzene and Toluene. The approximate time when the ratio of equilibrium concentration to initial adsorbate concentration (C/C_o) remained almost constant was chosen as the equilibrium time. All the experiments were run in duplicate. Different volume of Benzene and Toluene   of the same concentrations were added to the proper test tube at a constant temperature of 25°C. During the experiment, the OECD Guidelines 106 (2000) was followed in room condition temperature.  Various amount of Activated carbon and zeolite (0.002, 0.05, 0.2 and 0.4 gram of contaminants) were measured by digital measurement and added to the vials. The concentrations of clear supernatant of contaminants were determined by GC-FID (Gas chromatograph–Flame Ionization detector). The amount of Contaminants adsorbed on to the Activated Carbon, Zeolite and Osorb were calculated from the difference between the initial concentration and the amount remaining in the supernatant. A set of controls and blanks was included in all experiments. The amount of adsorption at equilibrium, Q (mg/kg), was calculated using the formula below:

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Where C_o and C_e (mg/L) represent the liquid phase concentrations of contaminants at the initial stage and at equilibrium. V is volume of solution and W is the mass of adsorbent.

Q=(CO-Ce)w×V

The experimental data were then fitted to three commonly used adsorption isotherm equations namely the Freundlich, Langmuir and Temkin. The Freundlich isotherm is the earliest known relationship describing the adsorption equation.

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3. Result

Preliminary experiments were conducted with sorption materials used in a popular commercial air purifier (Austin Air Healthmate Plus Jr., Sylvane Co. – Fig. 1) equipped with a pre-filter containing activated carbon and zeolite impregnated with potassium iodide. We extracted the carbon/zeolite mix (~2 kg) and separated the grains to measure the relative concentration of filter materials (72.1 ± 4.2% activated carbon and 27.9 ± 2.6% zeolite by mass). Batch sorption experiments were conducted with the extracted activated carbon, zeolite, and a novel swellable organosilica media (Osorb®) to determine the VOC sorption capacity of various chlorinated solvents (PCE, TCE) and BTEX compounds (Toluene and benzene). Batch sorption experiments were conducted in 20 mL glass vials with a septa cap allowing for in situ measurement of VOC sorption.  Various amounts of carbon, zeolite, and Osorb® were added to the bottom of the vial and small amounts of liquid VOC was added before quickly adding a crimped cap with a septa.  Extreme care was taken to ensure no contact of the materials with the VOC liquid until the VOC was fully volatilized (within 5 minutes).  The vials were then placed in plastic centrifuge tubes and gently rotated for 24 hours to ensure mixing.  Samples were analyzed for VOC concentration using a gas chromatograph (Perkin Elmer, Clarus 580) equipped with a headspace autosampler and flame ionization detector (FID). Results were modeled using Freundlich, Langmuir, and Temkin isotherm fitting techniques to interpret sorption parameters and capacities for the activated carbon, zeolite, and Osorb and images of the process are shown in Figure 9.  Activated carbon sorption capacities for Benzene and Toluene were modeled to be 94 and 32 mg/kg, respectively

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Figure1 Austin Air Healthmate Plus Jr., Sylvane Co.

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