Adsorption of argon, oxygen, and nitrogen on silver exchanged ETS-10 molecular sieve

The adsorption of argon, oxygen, and nitrogen were studied on silver exchanged titanosilicate molecular sieve ETS-10 and the silver exchanged aluminosilicate molecular sieve mordenite by inverse gas chromatography and volumetric adsorption isotherm measurements. Silver exchanged zeolites, especially silver-mordenite, have been noted to demonstrate some degree of selectivity for argon/oxygen. Ag-ETS-10 is found to have a selectivity of 1.49 for argon over oxygen at 30 °C in the Henry’s law regime. This is substantially higher than 1.25 obtained for Ag-mordenite under the same conditions. Ag-mordenite has been proposed as a useful adsorbent for the removal of argon from 95% to 5% O2–Ar stream generated by many adsorptive air separation processes. With its higher limiting argon selectivity, Ag-ETS-10 would appear to be a promising potential adsorbent for the production of high purity oxygen from such streams.