The purpose of the present work is to investigate the possibility of recovering acetone, ethyl acetate and ethanol from a nitrogen stream, using a thermal pressure swing adsorption (TPSA) process with activated carbon as an adsorbent. A mathematical model, considering nonisothermal, nonadiabatic and nonequilibrium process is developed and experimental data are collected for different operating conditions.The performance of the separation system is discussed on the basis of the enrichment, the recovery and the thermal energy consumption. It is shown that the theoretical model predicts well the experimental results and that the TPSA unit is capable of reaching good performances, namely reasonable enrichments for very high recoveries. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.