Abstract Hydrogels are cross-linked networks of water soluble polymers that have the potential to be used in the dehydration of wet gas. In this work, the uptake of hydrogels and molecular sieves were assessed in controlled humidity environments including in the presence of steam (100% relative humidity) and under pressurized conditions (6 MPa). The recyclability of the hydrogels and molecular sieves at 115 °C was also studied. At 98% humidity, the hydrogel was able to absorb twice its own mass while molecular sieves were only able to adsorb 0.3% of their mass. In the presence of steam (100% relative humidity), hydrogels absorb a maximum of approximately 23 times the absorbent's own mass while the molecular sieves merely adsorb an average of 0.4 times the adsorbent's mass under the identical experimental condition. Under pressurized conditions, hydrogels were able to absorb a maximum of approximately 6 times the absorbent's initial mass and an approximate of 0.25 times the adsorbent's initial mass. In terms of the recyclability, regeneration time and temperature the hydrogels show improved performance compared to molecular sieves. The superior uptake is due to the fundamentally different mechanism of dehydration of the hydrogel which results from swelling of the particles. This creates issues in terms of swelling and blocking of a dehydration column so methods to overcome this were explored by supporting the hydrogel. Owing to the outstanding water uptake performance, fast and complete regeneration, and readily available commercial supply, the hydrogel is considered as a viable and economical alternative to the commonly applied molecular sieve for gas phase dehydration.

中文翻译：

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使用水凝胶的气相脱水

摘要 水凝胶是水溶性聚合物的交联网络，具有用于湿气脱水的潜力。在这项工作中，水凝胶和分子筛的吸收在受控湿度环境中进行了评估，包括存在蒸汽（100% 相对湿度）和加压条件（6 MPa）。还研究了水凝胶和分子筛在 115 °C 下的可回收性。在 98% 的湿度下，水凝胶能够吸收其自身质量的两倍，而分子筛只能吸附其质量的 0.3%。在蒸汽（100% 相对湿度）存在下，水凝胶最多可吸收吸收剂自身质量的 23 倍，而分子筛在相同的实验条件下仅平均吸附 0.4 倍的吸附剂质量。在加压条件下，水凝胶最多能够吸收吸收剂初始质量的 6 倍和吸附剂初始质量的大约 0.25 倍。在可回收性、再生时间和温度方面，与分子筛相比，水凝胶显示出改进的性能。优越的吸收是由于由颗粒溶胀引起的水凝胶脱水的根本不同机制。这在脱水柱的膨胀和堵塞方面产生了问题，因此通过支持水凝胶探索了克服这一问题的方法。由于其出色的吸水性能、快速而完全的再生以及现成的商业供应，