Regulating adsorption performance of zeolites by pre-activation in electric fields.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37673916.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-41227-4 and PMC identifier 10482906.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
While multiple external stimuli (e.g., temperature, light, pressure) have been reported to regulate gas adsorption, limited studies have been conducted on controlling molecular admission in nanopores through the application of electric fields (E-field). Here we show gas adsorption capacity and selectivity in zeolite molecular sieves can be regulated by an external E-field. Through E-field pre-activation during degassing, several zeolites exhibited enhanced CO<sub>2</sub> adsorption and decreased CH<sub>4</sub> and N<sub>2</sub> adsorptions, improving the CO<sub>2</sub>/CH<sub>4</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub>/N<sub>2</sub> separation selectivity by at least 25%. The enhanced separation performance of the zeolites pre-activated by E-field was maintained in multiple adsorption/desorption cycles. Powder X-ray diffraction analysis and ab initio computational studies revealed that the cation relocation and framework expansion induced by the E-field accounted for the changes in gas adsorption capacities. These findings demonstrate a regulation approach to sharpen the molecular sieving capability by E-fields and open new avenues for carbon capture and molecular separations.