Accumulation of Natural Gas with a Prospective Material Based on Graphene Aerogel

The assessment of the possibility of effective use of graphene aerogels for the adsorption storage and transportation of methane is given. For the study, an aerogel based on reduced graphene oxide was synthesized using supercritical methods for processing a hydrogel in an isopropyl alcohol medium. A narrow distribution of micropores with a maximum at 0.8 nm, a narrow distribution of mesopores with a maximum at about 4.5 and 6.5 nm were revealed. The obtained graphene aerogel (GA) was used to study the adsorption of methane at pressures up to 10 MPa and temperatures of 298, 303, 313 K. The maximum gravimetric absorption of methane reaches 0.86 g/g (37 cm3 (STP)/cm3) and 2.6 g/g (109 m3 (STP)/m3) at corresponding pressures of 35 and 100 bar and a temperature of 298 K, which is the highest recorded value for porous carbon previously reported.

Modeling Adsorption in Silica Pores via Minkowski Functionals and Molecular Electrostatic Moments

Capillary condensation phenomena are important in various technological and environmental processes. Using molecular simulations, we study the confined phase behavior of fluids relevant to carbon sequestration and shale gas production. As a first step toward translating information from the molecular to the pore scale, we express the thermodynamic potential and excess adsorption of methane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water in terms of the pore’s geometric properties via Minkowski functionals. This mathematical reconstruction agrees very well with molecular simulations data. Our results show that the fluid molecular electrostatic moments are positively correlated with the number of adsorption layers in the pore. Moreover, stronger electrostatic moments lead to adsorption at lower pressures. These findings can be applied to improve pore-scale thermodynamic and transport models.

Mitigating Global Methane Emissions Using Metal-Organic Framework Adsorbents

Global emission of methane reached a record high in 2020. Furthermore, it is expected that methane emissions will continue to rise in the coming years despite the economic slowdown stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. Adsorbents can be used to reduce methane emissions. However, the question remains as to which adsorbents perform best for enhanced methane capture. In this work, it is demonstrated that metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) exhibited the best methane uptakes at 1 bar and 298 K from experiments as compared to tested carbonaceous materials, polymers, and zeolites. In addition, the adsorption entropy, an important thermodynamic property indicating adsorption capacity and kinetics, is determined on well-defined MOFs using a global predictive equation for porous materials. A correlation was used to describe the effect of translation and rotation of methane in the porous material for methane emission abatement. This information and the entropy of adsorption of methane on MOFs has not been reported before. The predicted results were compared to experimental data obtained from adsorption isotherms. Optimum isosteric heats were calculated by the Bhatia and Myers correlation. Finally, the pre-exponential factor of desorption is determined to aid in the design of materials for global methane emissions mitigation.