Pressure swing adsorption process for the separation of nitrogen and propylene with a MOF adsorbent MIL-100(Fe)

• Published in: Separation and purification technology 2013, Vol.110, p.101-111
• Main Authors: Ribeiro, Ana M., Campo, Marta C., Narin, Guler, Santos, João C., Ferreira, Alexandre, Chang, Jong-San, Hwang, Young Kyu, Seo, You-Kyong, Lee, U-Hwang, Loureiro, José M., Rodrigues, Alírio E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: adsorbents; Adsorption; Design; Dynamic simulation; iron; mathematical models; MIL-100(Fe); nitrogen; Nitrogen/propylene; polypropylenes; propylene; streams
• ISSN: 1383-5866; 1873-3794
• DOI: 10.1016/j.seppur.2013.03.009

•MIL-100(Fe) MOF was evaluated for the separation of propylene and nitrogen by PSA.•A C3H6/N2 selectivity of 40 was obtained for a 0.3/0.7 mixture at 2.5 bar and 70°C.•MIL-100(Fe) has a C3H6 working capacity of 1.8mol/kg between 0.75 and 0.1 bar at 70°C.•The proposed adsorptive process is an economically viable alternative. The recovery of propylene and nitrogen from the stream formed during the resin degassing (70% N2/30% C3H6) within the polypropylene production process is important from the economic and environmental points of view. This work proposes the use of a pressure swing adsorption process with MIL-100(Fe) as an adsorbent to carry out this separation, either for recovering only nitrogen, or recovering both nitrogen and propylene. Single and binary breakthrough curves were experimentally determined on a lab-scale set-up and simulated to validate the mathematical model. PSA simulation results showed that for the nitrogen recovery process, a product purity of 99.9% and a recovery of 81.5% could be achieved with a power consumption of only 115 Wh/kgN2. For the nitrogen and propylene recovery process, the products purities obtained were respectively 99.9% for nitrogen and 97.9% for propylene with recoveries of 97.4% and 87.6%. The adsorbent productivity was 0.20kgN2/kgads/h and 0.07kgC3H6/kgads/h. The total power consumption increased to 179Wh/kgN2 or 309Wh/kgC3H6 a value that is still below the ones reported previously in the literature for other technologies.