A system and process for the recovery of at least one halogenated hydrocarbon from a gas stream. The recovery includes adsorption by exposing the gas stream to an adsorbent with a lattice structure having pore diameters with an average pore opening of between about 5 and about 50 angstroms. The adsorbent is then regenerated by exposing the adsorbent to a purge gas under conditions which efficiently desorb the at least one adsorbed halogenated hydrocarbon from the adsorbent. The at least one halogenated hydrocarbon (and impurities or reaction products) can be condensed from the purge gas and subjected to fractional distillation to provide a recovered halogenated hydrocarbon.

An adsorbent composition for capturing pollutants includes a porous composition that includes a plurality of ferric oxyhydroxide particles and an additional component in the porous composition. The additional component includes one of copper chloride (CuCl.sub.2), zinc chloride (ZnCl.sub.2), polyvinylpolypyrrolidone, silicon carbide, silicon dioxide, activated carbon or other carbonaceous material, and a combination thereof.

In general, the present disclosure is directed to a soyhull-based activated carbon. The soyhull-based activated carbon comprises a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of from about 750 m.sup.2/g to about 2900 m.sup.2/g and a micropore volume of from about 0.50 cm.sup.3/g to about 1.2 cm.sup.3/g.

The present invention relates, in general terms, to methods of forming activated carbon. The method of forming activated carbon comprises mixing carbon black with an activation catalyst and heating the carbon black in order to form the activated carbon. The present invention also relates to applications of activated carbon as disclosed herein. In a preferred embodiment, the activation catalyst is selected from ammonium persulfate, sodium persulfate, potassium persulfate or a combination thereof.

The present invention provides novel chromatographic materials, e.g., for chromatographic separations, processes for their preparation and separations devices containing the chromatographic materials. The preparation of the inorganic/organic hybrid materials of the invention wherein a surrounding material is condensed on a superficially porous hybrid core material will allow for families of different hybrid packing materials to be prepared from a single core hybrid material. Differences in hydrophobicity, ion-exchange capacity, chemical stability, surface charge or silanol activity of the surrounding material may be used for unique chromatographic separations of small molecules, carbohydrates, antibodies, whole proteins, peptides, and/or DNA.

A method for separating N.sub.2 from a hydrocarbon gas mixture containing N.sub.2 comprising the steps of: i) providing a bed of adsorbent selective for N.sub.2; (ii) passing the hydrocarbon gas mixture through the bed of adsorbent to at least partially remove N.sub.2 from the gas mixture to produce: (a) N.sub.2-loaded adsorbent and (b) N.sub.2-depleted hydrocarbon gas mixture; iii) recovering the N.sub.2-depleted hydrocarbon gas mixture; iv) regenerating the N.sub.2-loaded adsorbent by at least partially removing N.sub.2 from the adsorbent; and v) sequentially repeating steps (ii) and (iii) using regenerated adsorbent from step (iv); wherein the adsorbent comprises a pyrolized sulfonated macroporous ion exchange resin.

The present invention includes a composition and process for separating p-isomers of vinylbenzenes from a mixture of isomers comprising the steps of: providing a porous microwaved Mg(II) 2,4-pyridinedicarboxylic acid coordination polymer having a 1-D pore structure and showing reversible soft-crystal behavior by preferentially binding p-isomers of vinylbenzene; adding a mixture of vinylbenzenes isomers to the porous microwaved Mg (II) 2,4-pyridinedicarboxylic acid coordination polymer; adsorbing the p-isomers of vinylbenzene from the mixture of vinylbenzenes isomers; selectively adsorb the p-isomers of vinylbenzene in the 1-D pore structure; removing the mixture of vinylbenzenes isomers; and desorbing the p-isomers of vinylbenzene from the 1-D pore structure to purify the p-isomers of vinylbenzene.

A sorbent structure that includes a continuous body in the form of a flow-through substrate comprised of at least one cell defined by at least one porous wall. The continuous body comprises a sorbent material carbon substantially dispersed within the body. Further, the temperature of the sorbent structure can be controlled by conduction of an electrical current through the body.

Some embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a device comprising a sorbent polymer composite and at least one phosphonium halide. In some embodiments, the device is configured to treat a flue gas stream. In some embodiments, the flue gas stream comprises oxygen, water vapor, at least one SOx compound, and mercury vapor. Some embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a method comprising treating the flue gas stream by: passing the flue gas stream over the device, reacting the oxygen and water vapor of the flue gas stream with the at least one SOx compound on the sorbent polymer composite, so as to form sulfuric acid, and reacting the mercury vapor with the at least one phosphonium halide, so as to fix molecules of the mercuiy vapor to the sorbent polymer composite.

Carbide-derived carbons are provided that have high dynamic loading capacity for high vapor pressure gasses such as H.sub.2S, SO.sub.2, or NH.sub.3. The carbide-derived carbons can have a plurality of metal chloride or metallic nanoparticles entrapped therein. Carbide-derived carbons are provided by extracting a metal from a metal carbide by chlorination of the metal carbide to produce a porous carbon framework having residual metal chloride nanoparticles incorporated therein, and annealing the porous carbon framework with H.sub.2 to remove residual chloride by reducing the metal chloride nanoparticles to produce the metallic nanoparticles entrapped within the porous carbon framework. The metals can include Fe, Co, Mo, or a combination thereof. The carbide-derived carbons are provided with an ammonia dynamic loading capacity of 6.9 mmol g.sup.−1 to 10 mmol g.sup.−1 at a relative humidity of 0% RH to 75% RH.