Adsorption and diffusion behavior of ethane and ethylene in sol-gel derived microporous silica

A. Conan Dewitt, K. W. Herwig, Stephen J. Lombardo

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13 Scopus citations

Abstract

High surface area silica (500 m 2/g) was synthesized by the sol-gel method from tetraethyl orthosilicate. The total porosity of the sample was 37% and most of the pores were well below 2 nm in size. The adsorption characteristics of ethylene and ethane in the silica were measured from 300-350 K by gravimetry, and Langmuir adsorption constants and enthalpies and entropies of adsorption were determined. Quasielastic neutron scattering was used to determine the translation and rotational diffusivities of both adsorbates from 200-270 K. Based on the adsorption and translational diffusion characteristics of ethylene and ethane, separation factors of 1.1-2 for olefin to paraffin are predicted.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)491-499
Number of pages9
JournalAdsorption
Volume11
Issue number5-6
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2005
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This work has benefited from use of the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source at Argonne National Laboratory supported by U.S. DOE-BES under contract No. W-31-109-Eng-38. One of us (KWH) would like to acknowledge support by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC05–960R22464. SJL and ACD acknowledge the Petroleum Research Fund for partial support of this work.

Keywords

  • Adsorbents
  • Diffusion
  • Gas separation

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