Adsorbents and Processes Efficient for Air Drying

The need for water removal is most commonly encountered in air and fluid filtration applications such as within the fuel system of a vehicle. Conventionally zeolites and alumina have been used to adsorb water; however high temperatures are required to regenerate the material used for adsorption. Moreover these existing materials lack water holding capacity (5-20%). Specialized coordination polymers may hold the key for efficient water adsorption with ease of regeneration. They have high porosity and are very amenable to “designer” networks and synthesis of these materials are often done in mild conditions that can be scaled up to industrial dimensions. University of Michigan researchers propose using super-adsorbent microporous coordination polymers as improved materials for water adsorption. Previous work in their group showed that certain types of polymers have very high water capacities (85%) and can be regenerated at low temperatures in an inert atmosphere. They propose the improvement of these polymers by changing the underlying chemistry and the pore size/geometry within the polymers and are also interested in the sustained performance of these polymers in extreme conditions Applications: (1) Air filtration (2) Cloud seeding (3) Petroleum refining (4) Desiccants (5) Heat storage and solar refrigeration (6) Hygiene and safety consumer products