Separation of Ethylene from OCM Reaction By Cu(I)-Doped Mesoporous Carbon

Separation of paraffin and olefins is great of importance in modern world. One such important separation is isolation of ethylene from ethane and other gases. Production of ethylene by the oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) may be regarded as a more sustainable approach to generate ethylene in an industrial scale as methane is considered as the cleanest fossil fuel and as a bridge between the traditional fossil fuel and complete sustainability. The key challenge of employing OCM is the separation of ethylene from the product mixture that usually consists of ethylene, ethane, methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. In this work, we have synthesized Cu(I)-doped mesoporous carbons as ethylene-selective adsorbents with Cu(I)-loading of 0.3-3.3 at.%. The adsorbents were characterized with pore textural properties, XRD, SEM-EDX and XPS. Ethylene adsorption was proven to be highest compared to all the gases present in OCM product mixture. IAST-based selectivity values ethylene with respect to ethane, methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen were calculated and the breakthrough of all these gases were simulated for a fixed bed adsorption process. The overall results suggest that Cu(I)-doped mesoporous carbon can be a potential adsorbent for separation of ethylene from OCM mixture.