Adsorption Measurements of Nitrogen and Methane in Hydrogen-Rich Mixtures at High Pressures

Authors: M. Bastos-Neto, A. Moeller, R. Staudt, J. Böhm, R. Gläser
Journal: Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2011, 50, 10211–10221, DOI: 10.1021/ie200652e

Abstract:
The separation of nitrogen and methane from hydrogen-rich mixtures is systematically investigated on a recently developed binder-free zeolite 5A. For this adsorbent, the present work provides a series of experimental data on adsorption isotherms and breakthrough curves of nitrogen and methane, as well as their mixtures in hydrogen. Isotherms were measured at temperatures of 283–313 K and pressures of up to 1.0 MPa. Breakthrough curves of CH4, N2, and CH4/N2 in H2 were obtained at temperatures of 300–305 K and pressures ranging from 0.1 to 6.05 MPa with different feed concentrations. An LDF-based model was developed to predict breakthrough curves using measured and calculated data as inputs. The number of parameters and the use of correlations were restricted to focus on the importance of measured values. For the given assumptions, the results show that the model predictions agree satisfactorily with the experiments under the different operating conditions applied.