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A fully consistent experimental and molecular simulation study of methane adsorption on activated carbon

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Abstract

The adsorption of pure methane in activated carbon Ecosorb was studied by combining grand canonical ensemble Monte Carlo molecular simulations and an experimental approach based on a gravimetric device. Experimental and calculated adsorption isotherms of methane were determined in supercritical conditions at 303.15 and 353.15 K and pressures up to 10 MPa. The comparison between both experimental and estimated data proves the consistency of the methodology used in this work, starting from the characterization of the porous media in terms of pore size distribution, the determination of the experimental adsorption isotherms, and the final estimation of computational results through estimated isotherms determination. Moreover, additional differential enthalpy of adsorption calculations were compared with experimental values obtained by means of a manometric/calorimetric technique. The good agreement shows the strength and the originality of this paper by combining experimental and computational homemade results allowing a complete characterization of the activated carbon substrate and its methane storage capacity.

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Acknowledgments

This work was sponsored by the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant Failflow (27769). This financial support is gratefully acknowledged. MMP acknowledges financial support from Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain), through project ref. FIS2012-33621, co-financed with EU FEDER funds.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire des Fluides Complexes et leurs Réservoirs (LFC-R), UMR 5150, CNRS, TOTAL, Univ Pau & Pays Adour, BP 1155, 64013, Pau, France

    Fadi Khaddour, Auriane Knorst-Fouran, Frédéric Plantier, Bruno Mendiboure & Christelle Miqueu

  2. Departamento de Física Aplicada, Facultade de Ciencias, Universidade de Vigo, 36310, Vigo, Spain

    Manuel M. Piñeiro

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  1. Fadi Khaddour
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  2. Auriane Knorst-Fouran
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  3. Frédéric Plantier
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  4. Manuel M. Piñeiro
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  5. Bruno Mendiboure
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  6. Christelle Miqueu
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Correspondence to Christelle Miqueu.

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Khaddour, F., Knorst-Fouran, A., Plantier, F. et al. A fully consistent experimental and molecular simulation study of methane adsorption on activated carbon. Adsorption 20, 649–656 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10450-014-9611-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10450-014-9611-2

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