Basic Research Needs for Design of Adsorptive Gas Separation Processes

Separation and purification of multicomponent gas mixtures by adsorption is an established process technology. Adsorptive process design requires accurate data on multicomponent gas adsorption equilibria, kinetics, and heats as input variables. These data often cannot be predicted by using today's models, particularly for complex practical systems where the gas mixtures have adsorbates of different sizes and polarities, and the adsorbent is energetically heterogeneous. There is a large volume of pure gas and some binary gas adsorption equilibrium and kinetic data in the published literature, but multicomponent adsorption data are rare. The data for heats of adsorption are only emerging. There is a desperate need to generate a multicomponent adsorption database for better understanding of the complex phenomenon, for seriously testing existing models, and for development of new models. Two recently developed methods called "isotope exchange technique" and "microcalorimetry for adsorption heats" are recommended for measurement of the multicomponent data. Needs to satisfy thermodynamic consistencies by binary gas equilibrium data and the equilibrium models are emphasized.