Water vapor adsorption and microporous structure of carbon adsorbents. 17. Analysis of experimental isotherms for water vapor adsorption

Water vapor adsorption for various activated carbons with narrow and wide micropore volume distributions and mesopore surface areas between 40 and 300 m²/g have been investigated. For all the isotherms the point of inflection was determined, which can be taken as the point characterizing the formation of a water adsorption layer on the pore wall surface of carbon adsorbents. To do this the adsorption and desorption branches of the isotherms were approximated according to Weibull's distribution. A good correlation was obtained between values for the water monolayer capacity, calculated from the porous structure parameters of the carbons, and the adsorption values corresponding to the isotherm inflection pointsa _inf. For the group of carbons studied the values of relative pressure at the inflection point of the isotherms fell within the range 0.5–0.72.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 1, pp. 31–34, January, 1991.