Abstract: A method is disclosed for the thermal regeneration of an adsorbent which contains adsorbed components which can react with and damage the adsorbent at regeneration temperatures. The method comprises passing a hot regeneration gas through a bed of the adsorbent at a sufficiently high flow rate such that the residence time and reaction of the desorbed components in the adsorbent bed are minimized. For removing water from CaX or SrX zeolites, the flow of nitrogen regeneration gas is controlled so that the nitrogen gas residence time in the bed is less than one second.

Abstract: The present invention involves an improved adsorbent for gas separation processes. The adsorbent comprises a binary ion exchanged Type X zeolite wherein between 5% and 40% of the available ion sites are occupied by Ca, and between 60% and 95% of the available ion sites are occupied by Sr. The present adsorbent is especially useful for the adsorption of N.sub.2 from an air stream at superambient pressure to produce an O.sub.2 -rich product stream.

Abstract: To improve the column dynamics of commercial pelleted sodium aluminosilicate zeolite adsorbents used in gas separation, the pellets are treated by washing in dilute aqueous mineral acid. The treatment is most effective as applied to sodium mordenite pellets, employing hydrochloric acid of about 0.1 normality.