Importance of Incorporating a Vacuum Pump Performance Curve in Dynamic Adsorption Process Simulation

The importance of incorporating a vacuum pump performance curve into a mathematical model that describes the regeneration steps in a vacuum swing adsorption (VSA) cycle was assessed. This was accomplished by evaluating the relationship between pressure and flow rate at the exit of a 13X zeolite bed, initially and uniformly saturated with 70 vol% CO2 in N2 at 333.15 K and 1 atm, which then underwent just countercurrent depressurization (CnD) and light reflux (LR) steps, i.e., the regeneration steps in a VSA cycle. Overall, this study revealed it is imperative to use a realistic vacuum pump model in cyclic adsorption process simulation, especially for estimating the ideal isentropic energy consumed during the regeneration steps in a VSA cycle, and it revealed the possible inaccurate performance predictions that might result when using a valve equation alone to describe these steps. The study on the effect of valve size (cv) without the vacuum pump present to mimic the behavior of the vacuum pump performance...