Investigations of CO2 Capture from Gas Mixtures Using Porous Liquids

Porous liquids, a new porous material with fluidity, can be applied in numerous fields, such as gas storage and/or separation. In this work, the separation of binary gas mixtures CO2/N-2 and CO2/CH4 with porous liquids was examined by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The pure gas adsorption capacity was analyzed with different concentrations of porous liquids. The dependence of the separation effect of a gas mixture on the total pressure and temperature was investigated. Meanwhile, for both CO2/N-2 and CO2/CH4 systems, the adsorption and separation effects of porous liquids with a cage:solvent ratio of 1:12 are better than those of 1:91 and 1:170. The results of the spatial distribution function and/or trajectories indicated that porous liquids prefer CO2, leading to the location of CO2 in the channels formed in porous liquids. However, N-2 and CH4 are hardly adsorbed into the bulk. The diffusion of gas molecules follows the order of CO2 > N-2 (for CO2/N-2) and CH4 > CO2 (for CO2/CH4) in the bulk and N-2 > CO2 (for CO2/N-2) and CH4 > CO2 (for CO2/CH4) at the interface of porous liquids. Upon increasing the concentrations of porous liquids, the working capacities of CO2 show small decreases in CO2/N-2 and CO2/CH4 systems, but the sorbent selection parameters are higher in pressure- and temperature-swing adsorption processes. The porous liquid with a cage:solvent ratio of 1:12 is more suitable for the separation of CO2/N-2 and CO2/CH4 systems than ratios of 1:91 and 1:170.