Novel glucosamine-based carbon adsorbents with high capacity and its enhanced mechanism of preferential adsorption of C2H6 over C2H4

Abstract

Abstract In this work, we synthesized a series of glucosamine-based carbon adsorbents with rich microporosity for effective C2H6/C2H4 adsorptive separation. Glucosamine was chosen as precursor to synthesize new microporous glucosamine-based carbon adsorbents (MGAs) and the resultant adsorbents were then characterized. Results showed that the BET surface area and pore volume of the MGAs reached as high as 3189\u202fm2/g and 1.92\u202fcm3/g, respectively. The FTIR and XPS results showed the presence of abundant N/O groups on carbon surface. Ethane and ethylene adsorption isotherms of the materials were then measured. The effects of N/O functionalities and micropore sizes on C2H6 and C2H4 adsorption were also elaborated by using molecular simulation. Interestingly, the materials presented preferential adsorption of ethane over ethylene with its ethane adsorption capacity reaching 7.6\u202fmmol/g under 1\u202fbar and 25\u202f°C. Its adsorption selectivity for ethane/ethylene (1:1) was improved and higher than many MOFs, being in the range of 2.2–6.8 at