Predicting the integral heat of adsorption for gas physisorption on microporous and mesoporous adsorbents

We have developed two predictive methods for the heats of adsorption that stem from isotherm models and benchmarked them against the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. These are the Tóth potential function model and the modified Clapeyron equation. Three adsorbate/adsorbent working pairs are used as examples: n-butane/BAX 1500 activated carbon, isobutane/BAX 1500 activated carbon, and ammonia/Fuji Davison type RD silica gel, all of which are examples of gas physisorption on adsorbents with both micro- and mesopores. Isotherms and corresponding integral heats of adsorption were measured in the range 298-348 K. For n-butane and isobutane, the pressures were up to 235 kPa, and for ammonia, the pressures were up to 835 kPa. Our two predictive methods consistently offer significant improvements over the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. Between the two predictive methods, the Tóth model is more robust across all three working pairs studied with predictions generally falling within 10-15% of the values of the measured heats. © 2014 American Chemical Society.