Effective CH4/N2 separation using NU-1000 at high pressures.

Separation of methane (CH₄) from other gases is of importance to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, the development and discovery of efficient adsorbents under pressure swing adsorption (PSA) conditions is a focus of many research papers. We evaluated the potential of CH₄/N₂ separation performance using four adsorbents, including zirconium-based metal organic frameworks (NU-1000, UiO-66, and UiO-67) and a conventional adsorbent, Zeolite-13X. Among them, NU-1000 presented high CH₄/N₂ selectivity (2.8) at 15 bar through ideal adsorbed solution theory because it has micro- and mesopores coupled with large surface area and a polar hydroxyl group along the pore surface. NU-1000 has a large CH₄ working capacity (4.79) under PSA processes. These results demonstrated that NU-1000 is a competitive adsorbent in PSA processes for CH₄/N₂ separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]