Tuesday, November 6, 2007 - 10:10 AM
164e

Atomistic Simulations Of CO2 And N2 Adsorption And Diffusion In Zeolites

Daniela Kohen, Jameson Dahlin, David Selassie, and Disan Davis. Chemistry, Carleton College, 1 North College St, Northfield, MN 55057

To efficiently separate CO2 from multi-species gas streams, sorbents must have high CO2 selectivity, and CO2 mobility within the materials must not be a limiting factor. Zeolites are one attractive option as sorbents due to their variety of structures, availability, and thermal and chemical stability. To investigate the influence of pore geometry on adsorption and selectivity, we have used Grand Canonical Monte Carlo to study the adsorption of CO2, N2, and CO2/N2 mixtures onto three zeolites with identical chemical composition (SiO2,) but different structures; silicalite, ITQ-3, and ITQ-7. These zeolites preferentially adsorb CO2 over N2 in both single component and mixture adsorption. The CO2/N2 selectivities observed in the three siliceous zeolites studied vary strongly as the adsorbent's crystal structure changes, with the selectivity in ITQ-3 being the largest. We have thus concluded that pore geometry strongly affects adsorption in the different zeolites. We present here the complementary studies of non-isotropic CO2 diffusion within these materials. Molecular Dynamics simulations have been used to compute CO2, N2 and CO2/N2 mixtures self-diffusion, corrected diffusion, and transport diffusion within ITQ-3, ITQ-7, and silicalite. Significant diffusion occurs, and carbon dioxide molecules explore large regions in all three zeolites. Rates of diffusion vary between zeolites, decreasing with increased pore loading in ITQ-7 and silicalite but showing a non-monotonic dependence in ITQ-3. In a complementary study we have also identified the preferred CO2 and N2 sites within silicalite, ITQ-3, and ITQ-7.