Equilibrium and heat of adsorption of phosphine on CaCl2-modified molecular sieve

Adsorption characteristics of the virgin and CaCl2-immersed molecular sieves at 298 K were investigated to select the adsorbent with high adsorption capacity to phosphine. Adsorption isobars and adsorption isotherms over the phosphine partial pressure and temperature ranged 0 similar to 1000 Pa and 298 similar to 343 K were measured. The adsorption equilibrium data for phosphine at various temperatures were fitted to Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models and their isosteric heats of adsorption were determined by the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. It was found the Freundlich was more suitable for description of phosphine adsorption process through calculating average absolute relative error, and the fitted result about Langmuir model showed the heterogeneous characteristics of modified adsorbent. The isosteric heat of adsorption was about 15 kJ/mol, which indicated adsorptive phosphine removal performance may be a dominant of physical adsorption being easy for desorption. The isosteric heat of adsorption decreased with an increase of the surface loading on CaCl2/5A. which means that CaCl2/5A molecular sieve had an energetically heterogeneous surface. The present study confirmed that the CaCl2/5A molecular sieves would be one of the candidates for separation and recycle of phosphine. (C) 2009 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.