Investigation on Adsorption and Separation Behavior of Propane/Propene Mixtures in Zeolites

Propane/propene separation is among the most energy-intensive separation processes in the petrochemical industry. Separation based on adsorption on a nanoporous material (e.g., zeolites) has spawned new ideas for this process. Therefore, we conducted grand canonical ensemble Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the adsorption and separation of propane and propene in one-dimensional (ATS, MOR, and AWO), two-dimensional (MWW, FER, and BOG) and three-dimensional (MFI, BEA, FAU) zeolites. The computation of pure components indicates that the adsorption capacity is affected by the zeolite pore diameter, dimensionality, and isosteric heat. For a given diameter, three dimensional zeolites exhibit better adsorption properties than two or one-dimensional zeolites. Zeolites with diameters ranging from 4.8 Å to 5.4 Å show high propane and propene affinity. In binary mixture simulations, the separation capacity of propane and propene increases with elevated pressure and decreased temperature. Among these zeolites, AWO exhibits the best separation performance due to its eight-ring window channel, which is consistent with experimental results. Thus, our results provide better understanding on propane and propene adsorption and separation in different zeolites, as well as insight into how production conditions could be upgraded.