Binary and ternary adsorption equilibria for CO2/CH4/N2 mixtures on Zeolite 13X beads from 273 to 333 K and pressures to 900 kPa

Abstract

Reliable adsorption equilibrium data and theoretical models for their accurate representation are crucial to the design of any adsorption based separation. The adsorption equilibria of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen are particularly important to the development of industrial pressure swing adsorption processes intended to separate CO2 and N2 from a variety of conventional as well as unconventional natural gas sources. The adsorption equilibrium capacities of gas mixtures needed for process design and simulation are often predicted from pure component adsorption data using various models including the ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST). In this work, we present the adsorption equilibrium capacity data for a ternary gas mixture of CO2, CH4 and N2 as well as pure and binary gas mixtures of the same components on a commercial zeolite 13X, measured at temperatures of (273, 303 and 333 K) and pressures from (25 to 900 kPa) using a dynamic column breakthrough (DCB) apparatus. Although previous adsorption studies have reported the adsorption equilibria of pure and to a lesser degree binary gas mixtures on zeolite 13X, no experimental data are available in the literature for a ternary gas mixture of CO2, CH4 and N2 on zeolite 13X APG-III, a promising adsorbent for carbon capture and natural gas separation. The measured pure component adsorption capacities were regressed to a Toth isotherm model and the obtained Toth parameters were used to implement an IAST model for binary and ternary adsorption predictions. The IAST predictions of mixture gas adsorption represented the binary and ternary adsorption equilibria well with their corresponding maximum deviations being 0.055 and 0.3 mmol/g, respectively. This indicates the IAST can be applied successfully to these adsorption systems even though they involve molecules with different adsorption affinity and adsorbents with heterogeneous surfaces.