Development of Carbon Molecular Sieve for Gas Separation

Gas separation technology by adsorption processes has been widely applied in many related
industries, such as petrochemicals, environmental technology, oil and gas industries. One of the
typical applications of Carbon Molecular Sieve is as the separation barrier for separation of light
gases. This application was known since 1950s. Recently as for gas separation, development
carbon molecular sieve (CMS) has gained much attention by the engineers worldwide. One of
the typical examples of gas separation is air separation. For the separation of air for nitrogen, N2
and oxygen, 0 2• it can be carried out by Pressure-Swing-Adsorption (PSA) over carbon
molecular sieve. CMS adsorbent are widely used in gas separation process because it has
effective micro pore diameter ranging from 0.14nm to 0.9nm which is comparable to the
molecular diameter of adsorbates to be separated.
In this work, carbon molecular sieve was synthesized from commercial activated carbon. After
synthesized process completed, these material were subjected to carbonization at 600°C under an
inert atmosphere. These materials then were analysed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)
for structural analysis. The molecular sieve surface area and porosity will be estimated using
BET method.