Pelletized Zeolite Templated Carbons for Methane Adsorption

Zeolite-templated carbons (ZTCs) have some of the highest specific surface areas of any carbon material, with highly ordered microporous networks and unique mechanical properties, making them ideal for gas adsorption. Our work focuses on improving volumetric methane storage via adsorption as an alternative to conventional compressed gas systems. The ZTCs were pelletized to increase their volumetric density, with good success. Sieverts methane isotherms up to 10MPa were measured at temperatures from 235K to 328K, and the isotherms were fit to a dual-site Langmuir equation to extract relevant thermodynamic properties. Nitrogen and helium measurements have been conducted to measure the specific surface areas, pore size distributions, and skeletal densities. Effects of pelletization on the pore microstructures and on adsorbent-adsorbate interactions will be reported. The highest deliverable volumetric uptake of the pellets (between 5 bar and 100 bar) was found to be about 2.5X and 2X higher than for a purely compressed gas at 273K and 298K, respectively, making pelletization of ZTCs a promising technology for compressed gas storage.