Simulation study of pressure swing adsorption to purify helium using zeolite 13X

Abstract

A two-bed pressure swing adsorption system on a commercial type of zeolite 13X adsorbent has been studied nu-merically over a wide range of operating conditions to helium separation from gaseous mixture. The model includes energy, mass and momentum balances. The coupled partial differential equations are solved using fully implicit forth order Rung-Kutta scheme in the simulation. The effects of adsorption step pressure, adsorption step time and feed flow rate on the helium purity and recovery were investigated. Results shown that as the adsorption step pressure increases the helium purity will be increased. In addition, the helium recovery increases, and the helium purity decreases when the feed flow rate increases. Finally, the simulation results indicated a very good agreement with some current literature experimental work.