NUCON has designed numerous activated carbon adsorption based solvent recovery systems. While early systems used steam for regeneration, more recently, hot gas regeneration using the Brayton cycle technology patented by 3M company and licensed by NUCON has been used.
In some cases, hot gas regeneration is preferred over steam regeneration because the carbon is dry at the end of the cooling cycle. Water would interfere with the adsorption of low boiling solvents. This is especially true for recovering carbon disulfide from a cellulose sponge manufacturing process. The solvent recovered in the NUCON process is reused in manufacturing the sponges.
In cases where solvent emissions are small but exceed the allowable levels, an adsorber can be used to prevent the emissions but an individual regeneration system does not need to be installed at the site. A portable regenerator can be moved from site to site.