Sorption of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrogen on zeolite-F: Equilibrium adsorption study

Carbon dioxide is a major contributor in greenhouse gases. Unswerving increase of CO2 in atmosphere, due to growing industries and automobile field, is a wakeup call to the world as excess of CO2 will affect humans in many ways among which greenhouse effect dominated the most. In the present work potassium based zeolite-F was synthesized by hydrothermal method as reported by International Zeolite Association. Synthesized zeolite-F was characterized with powder X-Ray diffraction analysis, FT-IR spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, thermo gravimetric analysis and BET surface area measurement. The equilibrium adsorption capacities of pure gases CO2, N-2, and CH4 were measured at 273, 288, and 303 K up to 850 mmHg. Although zeolite-F possesses low CO2 adsorption capacity (43.6cc/g) at 303 K, the selectivity towards N-2 and CH4 reflects its potential as an efficient CO2 adsorbent. The selectivity of CO2 over N-2 in zeolite-F was 38 at 303 K and 850 mmHg pressure, whereas selectivity for CO2 over CH4 was 30. Thus, zeolite-F has shown potential for selective CO2 adsorption from its gas mixture with N-2 and CH4. (c) 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 36: 850-856, 2017