An adsorbent material fabricated into a reinforcement-free, self-supported coherent
thin sheet and configured for use as a parallel passage
contactor element in adsorption / separation applications with gases and liquids is disclosed. The adsorbent
sheet material is obtained by enmeshing fine adsorbent
particulates in a
polymer binder.
Particulates include but are not limited to carbon particles, inorganic oxides particles, or
ceramic particles, or
synthetic polymer resin particles. The adsorbent sheet advantageously contains a large
volume percentage of active adsorbent particles. The parallel passage
contactor device fabricated from the adsorbent
sheet material is characterized by minimal
mass transfer resistance and better separation efficiency expressed as height equivalent to a
theoretical plate, while it maintains most of the adsorptive properties of the starting
particulates, and can be used in
gas separation applications with short adsorption cycles, such as rapid
pressure swing adsorption, rotary concentrators, rapid electric swing adsorption.