Introduction

MiniBTC is a small, laboratory-based instrument for material sorption analysis, which is designed and manufactured by RuboLab, Germany. MiniBCT provide the Breakthrough Curve (BTC) analysis for researchers to perform high efficiency and high precision BTC experiments under controlled laboratory conditions. Under the control of various simulation conditions (e.g. temperature, pressure). With MiniBTC, one is able to downscale the adsorption experiments by laboratory scale, and analyze the capacity and performance of an adsorbent along with the target fluid sample(s), typically gas(es).

Breakthrough Cureve (BTC), is a common method which is used in adsorbent capacity and performance analysis. A BTC determines when the absorbent gets “breakthrough”, which means the target fluid starts to be detected from the gas outlet. And until the end, the outlet detects the same concentration of fluid as the inlet, when the absorbent gets “saturated”. An ideal BTC looks like the below figure.

BTC is not only used in the traditional water purification materials research, but also in many high-tech new materials research, and industries, such as energy, pharmaceutical, semi-conductor, environment engineering,...

RuboLab offers three versions of the BTC system to measure breakthrough curves within an adsorber column.

LP 0-7 bar

MP 0-20 bar

HP 0-40 bar

Each system contains a modular gas dosing unit to generate the different fluid flows. Afterwards the stainless steel adsorber vessels are flown through by the corresponding gas mixtures. For this purpose, the system contains two thermal mass flow controllers and a pressure regulation device.

The sorption based temperature change within the adsorber bed can be detected by using three different temperature sensors. In addition, the breakthrough can be measured using a gas analyzation of the product flow. The standard version of the miniBTC instrument contains an electrical heating device which can be used for samples pretreatment as well as high temperature sorption measurements. Optionally the system can be expanded with a with a liquid bath thermostat.

Features

• Adjustable Adsorber Geometry
  For detailed BTC or PSA studies the adsorber geometry is of special interest. For this reason the sample holder of the RuboLab mini BTC instrument can be equipped with inner containments to adjust height-diameter ratio of adsorber bed. In this context, customer specific solutions can be realized. In addition, the bed volume reduction allows the measurement of smallest sample amounts (e.g. in case of Metal-organic frameworks).
  
• Costumizable Gas Analysis
  The sensors used to determine fluid composition can be configured freely. By doing this, specific measuring tasks can be carried out according to customers’ specifications. The standard version of RuboLab mini BTC is combined with NDIR sensor, TCD or MS. Other options are on request.
  
• Dosing unit as Stand-Alone-Device
  The modular design of the system also allows the independent use of the gas dosing in combination with other equipment in your laboratory. For this purpose the Rubolab software provides an independently executable software for controlling the gas dosing unit.
  

The picture on the left shows experimental results, measured by means of the RuboLab mini BTC. Sorption measurement was performed using a binary gas composition (He,CO2) and a carbon molecular sieve.

Order Information

miniBTC LP 0-7 bar

miniBTC MP 0-20 bar

miniBTC HP 0-40 bar

*The detectors and other kind of sensor can be attached by request