Rapid treatment of trace toluene in air with an air cleaner consisting of a continuous adsorption and desorption concentrator and photocatalytic reactor with a parallel array of nine light sources

To rapidly treat a large amount of air containing trace volatile organic compounds, we previously developed an air cleaner consisting of a continuous adsorption-anddesorption concentrator with a honeycomb rotor loading zeolite particles and a photocatalytic reactor with a parallel array of nine 6W blacklight blue fluorescent lamps. In the present work, this air cleaner was miniaturized and its performance was investigated in the treatment of 1 m air containing trace toluene (3.7-10.7 mg; about 1-3 ppmv). The toluene concentration in an 1 m room was rapidly reduced to almost a zero value in only 10 min by adsorption and then photocatalytically decomposed in a 0.022 m reactor box. The decomposition activity of the photocatalyst and the ability of the zeolite rotor to adsorb toluene were sufficiently stable in repeated use of the same materials.