Air separation by silver titanosilicate with enhanced density

Abstract

Previously, we reported that Ag-ETS-10 can be used to separate air, and produce argon free oxygen. It was reported that high purity oxygen (99+%) was generated using a bed of Ag-ETS-10 granules to separate air (78.0% N2, 21.0% O2, 1.0% Ar) at 25 °C and 100 kPa, with an O2 recovery larger than 30%. In this study, a higher oxygen recovery was achieved by enhancing the capacity of the adsorbent material and by improving the packing efficiency of the adsorbent within the granules. The packing efficiency of the bed was increased through the combination of two different granule sizes. Here we report a lab scale demonstration of high purity oxygen (99+%) production by adsorptive air separation (78.0% N2, 21.0% O2, 1.0% Ar) with an O2 recovery approaching 40%. Further improvements in oxygen recovery are possible due to the exceptional crystalline density of Ag-ETS-10 (∼3.84 g/cm3).