Selective Adsorption Performances of UiO-67 for Separation of Light Hydrocarbons C1, C2, and C3

• Published in: Industrial & engineering chemistry research Vol. 56; no. 30; pp. 8689 - 8696
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yufan, Xiao, Huiyu, Zhou, Xin, Wang, Xun, Li, Zhong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 02.08.2017
• ISSN: 0888-5885; 1520-5045
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.7b01420

In this work, adsorption performances of UiO-67 for light hydrocarbon separation were investigated. UiO-67 with a BET surface area of 2590 m3·g–1 was prepared by a hydrothermal method and then characterized. Isotherms of CH4, C2H6, and C3H8 (C1, C2 and C3) on UiO-67 were measured by a volumetric method, and fixed bed experiments were carried out to evaluate dynamic separation performance of UiO-67. The C2H6/CH4, C3H8/CH4, and C3H8/C2H6 adsorption selectivities of the sample were estimated separately on the basis of ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST), DIH-based equation, and breakthrough curves. The results showed that (a) the adsorption capacities of UiO-67 reached separately 3.00 and 8.18 mmol·g–1 for C2H6 and C3H8 at 1 atm and 298 K, while its CH4 adsorption capacity was only 0.45 mmol·g–1; (b) the isotherms of the light hydrocarbons can be well described by dual-site Langmuir–Freundlich models; (c) isosteric heats of these light hydrocarbons adsorption followed the order: C3H8 > C2H6 > CH4; and (d) fixed bed experiments showed that the dynamic adsorption selectivity of UiO-67 toward C2H6/CH4 and C3H8/CH4 binary mixtures reached 7.3 and 69.3, respectively. Hence, UiO-67 is a promising adsorbent for the separation of light hydrocarbons.