Multicomponent gas separation and purification using advanced 2D carbonaceous nanomaterials

SJ Mahdizadeh and EK Goharshadi, RSC ADVANCES, 10, 24255-24264 (2020).

DOI: 10.1039/d0ra04286b

Multicomponent gas separation and purification is an important pre- or post-processing step in industry. Herein, we employed a multiscale computational approach to investigate the possibility of multicomponent low-weight gas (H-2, O-2, N-2, CO2, CH4) separation and purification using novel porous 2D carbonaceous nanomaterials, namely Graphdiyne (GD), Graphenylene (GN), and Rhombic-Graphyne (RG). The dispersion- corrected plane-wave density functional theory (DFT) calculation combined with the Climbing Image Nudged Elastic Band (CI-NEB) method was employed to study the gas/membrane interaction energy and diffusion barrier of different gases passing through the geometrically optimized membranes. The results from CI-NEB calculations were then fitted to the Morse potential function to construct a bridge between quantum mechanics calculations and non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulation. The selectivity of each membrane for all binary mixtures was calculated using the estimated diffusion energy barriers based on the Arrhenius equation. Finally, a series of extensive NEMD simulations were carried out to evaluate the real word and time dependent separation process. According to the results, CH(4)molecules can be completely separated from the other gases using a GD membrane, O(2)molecules from CH4, N-2, and CO(2)by a GN membrane, and H(2)molecules from all other gases using a RG membrane.

Return to Publications page