Separation of impurities (CO₂ and N₂) from CH₄ is an important issue for natural gas alternatives (such as coalbed gas, biogas, and landfill gas) upgrading. It is notably challenging to synthesize high N-doped porous carbon with an appropriate porous structure. In this work, high N content (14.48 wt %) porous carbon with micropore size of 0.52 and 1.2 nm and specific surface area of 862 m² g-1 has been synthesized from potassium hydroxide (KOH) activated waste wool upon the urea modification. Pure component adsorption isotherms of CO₂, CH₄, and N₂ are systematically measured on this enhanced N-doped porous carbon at 0 and 25 °C, up to 1 bar, to evaluate the gases adsorption capability, and correlated with the Langmuir model. These data are used to estimate the separation selectivities for binary mixtures of CO₂/CH₄ and CH₄/N₂ at different mixing ratios according to the ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) model. At an ambient condition of 25 °C and 1 bar, the predicted selectivities for equimolar CO₂/CH₄ and CH₄/N₂ are 3.19 and 7.62, respectively, and the adsorption capacities for CO₂, CH₄, and N₂ are 2.91, 1.01, and 0.13 mmol g-1, respectively. This report introduces a simple pathway to obtain enhanced N-doped porous carbon with large adsorption capacities for gas separation of CO₂/CH₄ and CH₄/N₂.
Keywords: CO2/CH4 and CH4/N2; absorbent; enhanced N-doped; porous carbon; selectivity.