Eelectrothermal-swing adsorption (ESA) with activated carbon fiber cloth (ACFC) adsorbent can be used to capture and recover organic vapors and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from gas streams. These recovered materials are then available for reuse at the location that generated the pollutants. ESA is simpler and more compact than conventional thermal-swing adsorption (TSA) devices. Moreover the occurrence of bed fires is much less than traditional granular activated carbon (GAC) beds.

The bench-scale ESA system with fully automatic microprocessor-based process control system was built and tested for adsorption of methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) from air stream. Removal efficiencies of >99.9% have been demonstrated during continuous adsorption/desorption.