A simplified model was developed to describe the water vapor adsorption on activated carbon. The development of the simplified model was started from the original model proposed by DO and his co-workers. Two different kinds of carbon materials were prepared for water vapor adsorption, and the adsorption experiments were conducted at different temperatures(20-50 °C) and relative humidities(5%-99%) to test the model. It is shown that the amount of adsorbed water vapor in micropore decreases with the temperature increasing, and the water molecules form larger water clusters around the functional group as the temperature is up to a higher value. The simplified model describes reasonably well for all the experimental data. According to the fitted values, the parameters of simplified model were represented by the temperature and then the model was used to calculate the water vapor adsorption amount at 25 °C and 35 °C. The results show that the model can get relatively accurate values to calculate the water vapor adsorption on activated carbon.
Five different kinds of hydrophilic organic salts were used to modify commercial activated carbon in order to prepare hydrophilic carbon materials. Properties of the samples were analyzed by surface area analyzer and SEM-EDX. The hydrophilic organic salts with different properties were introduced into activated carbon and significantly affected the properties of the samples.During adsorption experiments, the water vapor adsorption amount in modified samples increases by 0.57-17.12 times in temperature range from 303 to 323 K and at relative pressure below 0.50. Water molecules combined with surface hydrophilic groups through H-bonding exhibit good thermo stability. The effects of temperature, oxygen content and properties of the hydrophilic organic salts on water vapor adsorption were studied. It is indicated that water vapor adsorption in modified samples is mainly affected by the surface oxygen content. The carboxylate radicals in the hydrophilic organic salts greatly affect the micropore structure of the modified samples, while the metal ions in them exhibit limited influence. Different adsorption capacity of modified samples can be explained with the electronegativity of elements presented by Pauling.
