Microporous carbon material with high adsorption rates

A compacted microporous carbon material (CMC-032) was obtained, which has a number of unique properties: a high specific surface area according to BET (SBET = 2384 m2/g), a large volume of micropores (~ 0.95 cm3/g), and a very high ability to retain methane 336 m3/v3. Sorbent CMC-032 is obtained by activating polymer raw materials with potassium hydroxide and compaction by hot pressing using polyvinyl alcohol as a binder. In the most demanded range of methane accumulation pressures of 3,5 – 10,0  MPa, the amount of accumulated methane in the system with CMC-032 reaches 270 m3/m3. The amount of methane stored in the system with and without CMC-032 adsorbent at 100 bar differs by about 3 times. The physicochemical properties of the obtained CMC-032 adsorbent were studied using methods including adsorption-desorption of N2 at 77 K, X-ray diffraction analysis, FTIR spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. Based on the adsorption characteristics, it was found that CMC-032 is a promising material for storing natural gas methane. It is assumed that the high adsorption capacity is due to the high micropore volume and packing density.