The high efficiency separation of
ethane from natural gas becomes
significant due to the occurrence of revolution in shale gas. Herein
a new approach of continuous sorption separation was developed using
a flowable zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) slurry. First,
the sorption isotherms of CH4 and C2H6 in the ZIF-8 slurry were measured at 273.15–293.15 K, and
the corresponding desorption heats are 13 and 20 kJ/mol, respectively.
In comparison with the light oil absorption, higher ethane solubility
in the slurry was observed. Next, the influences of temperature, equilibrium
pressure, initial gas–slurry volume ratio, and feed gas composition
on separation performance were studied by systematically measuring
gas–slurry equilibria for CH4 + C2H6 mixtures. The pseudo P–T–x–y phase diagram
shows that a minimum stage number of 6 was required for a thorough
separation. Finally, the Langmuir equation was modified to fit gas–slurry
equilibrium data by introducing cross interaction parameters. Both
the experimental data and model are significant for the following
design of the separation process using the ZIF-8 slurry.
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