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Propylene/propane mixture adsorption on faujasite sorbents

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Abstract

The adsorption of propylene and propane on zeolite NaX with and without a saturated (36 wt%) amount of CuCl have been investigated. The single component adsorption isotherms could be well described with a Dual-Site Langmuir model. The dispersion of CuCl results in a decrease of the maximum adsorption capacity of the zeolite for both components. For propylene a strong adsorption via π-complexation with CuCl is present, increasing the adsorption selectivity of the zeolite.

The binary mixture (50:50) adsorption was determined via breakthrough/desorption experiments at 318, 358 and 408 K with a partial pressure of the two components between 0.8–54 kPa. For NaX the mixture loading could be well described with the IAS-theory and the single component isotherms, both qualitatively and quantitatively. A transition from an enthalpy controlled adsorption at lower loadings to an entropy affected adsorption at higher loadings was observed. The IAS-theory could only qualitatively describe the trends in the observed mixture adsorption for the CuCl/NaX adsorbent. The dispersion of CuCl in NaX results in a modest improvement of the adsorption selectivity for propylene over propane (from 3–7 to 15–30) but at the expense of a reduced capacity.

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Abbreviations

K H,i :

Henry’s law constant for component i [mol kg−1 Pa−1]

K i,j :

Adsorption constant for component i on site j [Pa−1]

P tot :

Total pressure at the bottom of the column [Pa]

q i :

Adsorbed amount of component i [mol kg−1]

q sat i,j :

Saturation capacity for component i on site j [mol kg−1]

Q st :

Isosteric heat of adsorption [J mol−1]

Q st0 :

Isosteric heat of adsorption at zero coverage [J mol−1]

R g :

Universal gas constant [J mol−1 K−1]

T 0 :

Reference temperature (318 K) [K]

x i,in :

Mol fraction of component i in the feed [−]

ΔH ads,j :

Adsorption enthalpy for site j [J mol−1]

φ mol,in :

Molar flowrate into the column [mol s−1]

φ v,in :

Volumemetric flowrate into the column [m3 s−1]

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Catalysis Engineering, DelftChemTech, Delft University of Technology, Julianalaan 136, 2628 BL, Delft, The Netherlands

    Arjen van Miltenburg, Jorge Gascon, Freek Kapteijn & Jacob A. Moulijn

  2. Institute of Physical Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, Zhejiang, Peoples’s Republic of China

    Weidong Zhu

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  1. Arjen van Miltenburg
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  2. Jorge Gascon
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  3. Weidong Zhu
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  4. Freek Kapteijn
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  5. Jacob A. Moulijn
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Correspondence to Arjen van Miltenburg.

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van Miltenburg, A., Gascon, J., Zhu, W. et al. Propylene/propane mixture adsorption on faujasite sorbents. Adsorption 14, 309–321 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10450-007-9101-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10450-007-9101-x

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