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Updated: Dec 15, 2025

Spatial Separation of Molecular Conformers and Clusters
Published on: January 9, 2014
Separating Hydrocarbon Mixtures by Driving the Components in Opposite Directions: High Degree of Separation Factor
Shubhadeep Nag1, G Ananthakrishna2, Prabal K Maiti3
1Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India.
Abstract:
A radically different approach for separation of molecular mixtures is proposed. A judicious combination of levitation effect observed in zeolites with a counter intuitive Landauer blow torch effect provides driving forces for the two components of the mixture to move in opposite directions. Using nonequilibrium Monte Carlo simulations, we illustrate the efficacy of the method for separating real mixtures of both linear n-pentane and its branched isomer, neopentane, and linear n-hexane and its branched isomer, 2,2-dimethylbutane. The method yields several orders of magnitude improvement in separation factor and relative energy efficiency by using submicron zeolite column. The extremely high purity of the resulting single components makes the method best suited for green chemistry.
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