Gases of driving methane out of a carbon nanotube

Abstract

Methane is a kind of clean energy resource. Driving methane molecules out of a nanochannel efficiently is helpful to increase mining efficiency. Injecting other gas molecules is an ideal method to increase methane production. By molecular dynamics simulation, we take the adsorption behaviors of methane (CH 4 ) and nitrogen (N 2 ) mixture in a carbon nanotube for example. Compared with nitrogen (N 2 ), methane (CH 4 ) obtains an advantage on adsorption in a carbon nanotube when methane concentration changes from 0.1 to 0.9. By changing the parameters of ε and σ, we find two parameters can regulate the adsorption behaviors of methane in a carbon nanotube. The probability of driving CH 4 molecules out of a carbon nanotube increases with increasing the parameter of ε at the same σ, while the probability of driving CH 4 out of a carbon nanotube increases at first and then decreases with increasing σ at the same ε. We expect the results could guide the process of methane production efficiently in a physical view.