Recovery of High-Boiling Point Solvents Using Adsorption

Apparatus for recovering high-boiling point solvent vapour from gas comprises a honeycomb-structured rotor 1 having an adsorbent supported thereon, a separator 6 for partitioning each end face of the rotor into an adsorption zone 5, a desorption zone 4, and optionally a purge zone 7. Fan F1 blows the gas A contaminated with solvent through a cooling means C1 and through the adsorption zone where the solvent is removed. Most of the clean gas effluent a is released to the atmosphere, except for a fraction that is heated by heater H, and passed through the desorption zone 4 to remove the previously adsorbed solvent. This hot solvent enriched gas S is fed to cooling means C2 to liquify and separate out the solvent L, producing a cooled lean gas V. Fan F2 causes the lean gas to be recombined with the contaminated gas A supply for recycling through the system. If a purge zone 7 is present, then the clean gas a is passed through this zone to cool the adsorbent, before it is heated and passed through the desorption zone. A method of recovering high-boiling point solvent using this apparatus is also disclosed.