Sunil A. Peter

Adsorption and separation of CO2 on KFI zeolites: effect of cation type and Si/Al ratio on equilibrium and kinetic properties.

Selective separation of CO2 is becoming one of the key technologies in the (petro-) chemical industry. This study focuses on the adsorption and separation of CO2 from CH4 on a new low-silica (LS) type of the eight-membered ring KFI zeolite. A series of alkali (Li, Na, K) and alkaline-earth (Mg, Ca, Sr) exchanged samples of the new LS KFI were synthesized and characterized. LS Li-KFI showed the largest pore volume, whereas LS Na-KFI and LS K-KFI were inaccessible for Argon at 87 K. Adsorption of CO2 at 303 K demonstrated the dominant quadrupolar interaction on alkali-exchanged LS KFI samples. LS Li-KFI showed the largest capacities upon high pressure isotherm measurements of CO2 (4.8 mmol/g), CH4 (2.6 mmol/g), and N2 (2.2 mmol/g) up to 40 bar at 303 K. The performance of the new LS KFI was compared to a KFI sample (ZK-5) with a higher Si/Al ratio. Isotherm measurements and dynamic breakthrough experiments demonstrated that ZK-5 samples show larger working capacities for CO2/CH4 separations at low pressure. Li-ZK-5 and Na-ZK-5 show the highest capacities and high selectivities (similar to benchmark 13X).

Generic Mathematical Model for PSA Process

Adsorptive separations have gained considerable importance in process industry. A generic simulator has been developed in this work for Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) processes. Several simple and complex, conventional and unconventional PSA cycles have been studied using this simulator. Distinction has been made between PSA processes where a raffinate stream richer in the weakly adsorbed component as compared to the feed is the desired product as against processes where extract stream richer in the strongly adsorbed component is the desired product. These are termed as raffinate PSA and extract PSA respectively. Extract PSA is an unconventional process variation. The studies include several simple and complex PSA cycles for raffinate and extract PSA of industrial importance. The studies are aided by a generic simulator for all PSA process variations developed for the purpose. The simulator is equally applicable to Vacuum Swing Adsorption (VSA), Pressure Vacuum Swing Adsorption (PVSA), rapid cycle PSA processes, etc.

Sr2+ Exchanged Zeolite X as an Adsorbent Material for Chromatographic Separation of Argon-Oxygen Gaseous Mixture

The separation of argon and oxygen from their gaseous mixture is very difficult to accomplish by the adsorption process using zeolite adsorbents due to the closeness of their molecular properties and adsorption behavior in the zeolites. Strontium exchanged zeolite X (SrX) showed the adsorption selectivity for oxygen over argon at ambient temperature and demonstrated its potential as a column–packing material for the gas chromatographic analysis of argon-oxygen mixtures. The adsorption capacities and Henrys law constants for oxygen and argon increased in SrX compared to NaX at ambient temperature. Activation of the SrX adsorbent is shown to play a highly significant role in the separation of argon-oxygen mixture due to the low hydrothermal stability of SrX.