Microwave-Assisted Regeneration of Synthetic Zeolite Used in Tritium Removal Systems

Microwave irradiation was conducted for the effective regeneration process of a synthetic honeycomb type 5A zeolite adsorbent in a single-mode microwave cavity at 2.46 GHz. To investigate the effect of electromagnetic fields, inductive heating by a magnetic field was applied to synthetic zeolite containing water. Because the microwave energy absorbed in the sample was less than 15 W, the zeolite sample was only heated to a temperature of 71 °C. Water desorption was observed based on the increased temperature of the zeolite sample and the thermogravimetric curve that indicated a single step phenomenon. As a result, the regeneration process of zeolite was not complete over a period of 6000 s. A comparison of dielectric heating by an electric field with inductive heating by a magnetic field showed that the regeneration process by microwave irradiation was particularly beneficial in dielectric heating.