Screening of pure silica zeolites with high ethane/ethylene separation selectivity by simulations and experiments

Abstract

The advancement of ethane (C₂H₆)-selective materials offers the potential for developing energy-efficient adsorptive separation processes to obtain high-purity ethylene (C₂H₄) directly. However, these materials still suffer challenges of low selectivity, high cost, and poor stability. Herein, we presented a commercially scalable and stable MFI topology zeolite material (TS-1) with excellent ideal adsorption solution theory (IAST) selectivity (2.07) and separation potential (0.64 mmol g⁻¹). Polymer-grade ethylene (99.9%) could be afforded with the productivity of 11.5 L kg⁻¹ through the adsorption column packed with TS-1 material. Additionally, pure silica zeolite with DOH topology with excellent IAST selectivity (2.93) and separation potential (1.64 mmol g⁻¹) was discovered by high-throughput screening via the combination of experiments and simulations. These findings highlight that pure silica zeolites hold promise as C₂H₆-selective adsorbents for large-scale implementation for one-step C₂H₄ purification.