ABSTRACT
1,3,5-Tris(4-carboxyphenyl)benzene assembles into an intricate 8-fold polycatenated assembly of (6,3) hexagonal nets formed through hydrogen bonds and π-stacking. One polymorph features 56 independent molecules in the asymmetric unit, the largest Z' reported to date. The framework is permanently porous, with a BET surface area of 1095 m(2) g(-1) and readily adsorbs N2, H2 and CO2.
ABSTRACT
The thermodynamic treatment of adsorption phenomena is based on the Gibbs dividing surface, which is conceptually clear for a flat surface. On a flat surface, the primary extensive property is the area of the solid. As applications became more significant, necessitating microporous solids, early researchers such as McBain and Coolidge implemented the Gibbs definition by invoking a reference state for microporous solids. The mass of solid is used as a primary extensive property because surface area loses its physical meaning for microporous solids. A reference state is used to fix the hypothetical hyperdividing surface typically using helium as a probe molecule, resulting in the commonly used excess adsorption; experimentalists measure this reference state for each new sample. Molecular simulations, however, provide absolute adsorption. Theoreticians perform helium simulations to convert absolute to excess adsorption, mimicking experiments for comparison. This current structure of adsorption thermodynamics is rigorous (if the conditions for reference state helium measurements are completely disclosed) but laborious. In addition, many studies show that helium, or any other probe molecule for that matter, does adsorb, albeit to a small extent. We propose a novel thermodynamic framework, net adsorption, which completely circumvents the use of probe molecules to fix the reference state for each microporous sample. Using net adsorption, experimentalists calibrate their apparatus only once without any sample in the system. Theoreticians can directly calculate net adsorption; no additional simulations with a probe gas are necessary. Net adsorption also provides a direct indication of the density enhancement achieved (by using an adsorbent) over simple compression for gas (e.g., hydrogen) storage applications.
ABSTRACT
Diffusion of methane and argon mixtures through the silicalite single-crystal membrane is studied using the dual-control volume-grand canonical molecular dynamics method to understand how surface resistances alter selectivity and permeance. Comparison of results from intracrystalline transport and entrance simulations for binary mixtures of CH4 and Ar shows that the selectivity of silicalite membranes toward Ar is enhanced in the presence of the surface resistances. In both cases, however, diffusion of faster Ar molecules was inhibited by slower diffusing CH4 molecules, whereas diffusion of the latter remained unaffected. This behavior was explained by the difference between the magnitudes of surface resistances for two molecules, which is much smaller for Ar because of its smaller permeant-crystal interaction size. We find that selectivity of the membrane at the surface depends strongly on total feed pressure and temperature, whereas this dependence is weak for intracrystalline diffusion. Furthermore, we show that the selectivity at the surface diminishes with crystal thickness until a certain thickness is reached, whereas the intracrystalline selectivity remains constant with increasing thickness. Finally, a study of diffusion of C2H6 and CF4 mixtures shows that the diatomic ethane molecules diffuse faster inside the zeolite channels, but their desorption is hindered to a larger extent than that of a spherical molecule with larger diameter and lower heat of adsorption. This observation indicates that the difference in molecular geometry is also a significant factor to explain the exit effect.
