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- All Subjects: Adsorption
- All Subjects: CCS
- Genre: Masters Thesis
- Creators: Jin, Kailong
- Creators: McIntyre, Sean
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
- Status: Published
Description
The large-scale anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere leads to many unintended consequences, from rising sea levels to ocean acidification. While a clean energy infrastructure is growing, mid-term strategies that are compatible with the current infrastructure should be developed. Carbon capture and storage in fossil-fuel power plants is one way to avoid our current gigaton-scale emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However, for this to be possible, separation techniques are necessary to remove the nitrogen from air before combustion or from the flue gas after combustion. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a relatively new class of porous material that show great promise for adsorptive separation processes. Here, potential mechanisms of O2/N2 separation and CO2/N2 separation are explored.
First, a logical categorization of potential adsorptive separation mechanisms in MOFs is outlined by comparing existing data with previously studied materials. Size-selective adsorptive separation is investigated for both gas systems using molecular simulations. A correlation between size-selective equilibrium adsorptive separation capabilities and pore diameter is established in materials with complex pore distributions. A method of generating mobile extra-framework cations which drastically increase adsorptive selectivity toward nitrogen over oxygen via electrostatic interactions is explored through experiments and simulations. Finally, deposition of redox-active ferrocene molecules into systematically generated defects is shown to be an effective method of increasing selectivity towards oxygen.
First, a logical categorization of potential adsorptive separation mechanisms in MOFs is outlined by comparing existing data with previously studied materials. Size-selective adsorptive separation is investigated for both gas systems using molecular simulations. A correlation between size-selective equilibrium adsorptive separation capabilities and pore diameter is established in materials with complex pore distributions. A method of generating mobile extra-framework cations which drastically increase adsorptive selectivity toward nitrogen over oxygen via electrostatic interactions is explored through experiments and simulations. Finally, deposition of redox-active ferrocene molecules into systematically generated defects is shown to be an effective method of increasing selectivity towards oxygen.
ContributorsMcIntyre, Sean (Author) / Mu, Bin (Thesis advisor) / Green, Matthew (Committee member) / Lind, Marylaura (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
The objective of this research was to develop Aluminophosphate-five (AlPO4-5, AFI) zeolite adsorbents for efficient oxygen removal from a process stream to support an on-going Department of Energy (DOE) project on solar energy storage. A molecular simulation study predicted that substituted AlPO4-5 zeolite can adsorb O2 through a weak chemical bond at ambient temperature. Substituted AlPO4-5 zeolite was successfully synthesized via hydrothermal crystallization by following carefully designed procedures to tailor the zeolite for efficient O2 adsorption. Synthesized AlPO4-5 in this work included Sn/AlPO-5, Mo/AlPO-5, Pd/AlPO-5, Si/AlPO-5, Mn/AlPO-5, Ce/AlPO-5, Fe/AlPO-5, CuCe/AlPO-5, and MnSnSi/AlPO-5. While not all zeolite samples synthesized were fully characterized, selected zeolite samples were characterized by powder x-ray diffraction (XRD) for crystal structure confirmation and phase identification, and nitrogen adsorption for their pore textural properties. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) specific surface area and pore size distribution were between 172 m2 /g - 306 m2 /g and 6Å - 9Å, respectively, for most of the zeolites synthesized. Samples of great interest to this project such as Sn/AlPO-5, Mo/AlPO-5 and MnSnSi/AlPO-5 were also characterized using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) for elemental analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for morphology and particle size estimation, and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) for nature of adsorbed oxygen. Oxygen and nitrogen adsorption experiments were carried out in a 3-Flex adsorption apparatus (Micrometrics) at various temperatures (primarily at 25℃) to determine the adsorption properties of these zeolite samples as potential adsorbents for oxygen/nitrogen separation. Experiments showed that some of the zeolite samples adsorb little-to-no oxygen and nitrogen at 25℃, while other zeolites such as Sn/AlPO-5, Mo/AlPO-5, and MnSnSi/AlPO-5 adsorb decent but inconsistent amounts of oxygen with the highest observed values of about 0.47 mmol/ g, 0.56 mmol/g, and 0.84 mmol/ g respectively. The inconsistency in adsorption is currently attributed to non-uniform doping of the zeolites, and these findings validate that some substituted AlPO4-5 zeolites are promising adsorbents. However, more investigations are needed to verify the causes of this inconsistency to develop a successful AlPO4-5 zeolite-based adsorbent for oxygen/nitrogen separation.
ContributorsBuyinza, Allan Smith (Author) / Deng, Shuguang (Thesis advisor) / Varman, Arul M (Committee member) / Jin, Kailong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021