Lewatit® AF 5 is a microporous carbonaceous bead type material designed for downstream process separation and purification. The material is derived from a synthetic polymer, and its adsorptive characteristics are defined by a proprietary conditioning process. This conditioning process provides a unique adsorptive surface with excellent selectivity for small polar molecules from polar solvents. In addition, the narrow and uniform small pores provide some size exclusion chromatographic effects. Lewatit AF 5 is particularly suitable for the following applications:- Water treatment (removal of trace organic substances, such as chlorinated hydrocarbons, MTBE, organic phosphates, amines, pesticides and other metabolites)
- Cleaning of chemical products
- Removal of organics from electroplating process streams
- Isolation of active pharmaceutical ingredients
- Removal of acetic acid from brine
In contrast to activated carbon, the Lewatit AF 5 can be cleaned as often as desired by selecting a suitable regenerant without the need for any additional reactivation. Lewatit AF 5 is remarkable for its well defined uniform pore distribution, high surface area, and high adsorptive capacity. The separation mechanism is partially via low energy hydrogen bonding, resulting in simple elution methods with a variety of solvent. Lewatit AF 5 is commonly eluted with steam, or hot water, without damage to the surface structure of Lewatit AF 5. In contrast to conventional granular carbon adsorbers, Lewatit AF 5 has a narrow bead size distribution, and excellent mechanical stability (mechanical crush strength is approx. 3000 gms/bead in Chatillion measurement). Lewatit AF 5 is ideal for use in fixed bed for fluidized adsorption beds, with no carry-out of fine particles resulting from bead attrition. Lanxess recommends that preliminary tests be carried out at laboratory scale prior to industrial application. The laboratory experiments should define the optimum loading and elution conditions to maximize capacity, and elution techniques to recover the surface area for subsequent loading cycles.Information provided by Lanxess. |
