A NON-DESTRUCTIVE TEST TO DETECT CHANNELING IN FILTERS

CHANNELING CAN SEVERELY REDUCE FILTER LIFE. THUS, A NON-DESTRUCTIVE METHOD TO DETECT CHANNELING IS REQUIRED TO ENSURE THE ACCEPTABLE PERFORMANCE OF A CARBON FILTER WHILE MAINTAINING ITS PROTECTIVE LIFE. IN THE PHASE I FEASIBILITY EFFORT, SEVERAL TEST BEDS WILL BE INTENTIONALLY PACKED TO INDUCE VARIOUS DEGREES OF CHANNELING. NONDESTRUCTIVE BREAKTHROUGH EXPERIMENTS WILL BE PERFORMED USING AN APPROPRIATELY SELECTED VAPOR THAT WEAKLY ADSORBS. THE RESULTS WILL BE ANALYZED USING A MODIFIED VERSION OF THE WHEELER EQUATION AS A MEASURE OF THE EXTENT OF CHANNELING. FOLLOWING COMPLETE ELUTION OF THE WEAKLY ADSORBED VAPOR FROM THE TEST BEDS, BREAKTHROUGH TIMES WILL BE MEASURED USING THE STRONGLY ADSORBED VAPOR N-OCTANE AS THE CHALLENGE. THE BREAKTHROUGH RESULTS USING THE WEAKLY ADSORBED VAPOR WILL BE COMPARED WITH THE BREAKTHROUGH RESULTS USING N-OCTANE TO DETERMINE IF A CORRELATION EXISTS. THE PHASE I RESULTS WILL BE USED TO DESIGN A TEST APPARATUS AND ESTABLISH A STANDARDIZED PROTOCOL FOR DETERMINING CHANNELING IN CARBON FILTERS.