Sorption of saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons on selected coal sample from the Pniówek mine

Abstract

Type, amount and composition of gases which form in rocks and coals during a metamorphism process depend on a number of factors in particular genetic type of original matter, way and conditions of its gathering, temperature, pressure and geological time. Sorption tests were done by the volumetric method, with the use of adsorption micro-burettes. A major advantage of the measurement set-up is that the surplus amounts of adsorbate can be used in experiments, which is of particular importance when handling sorbents with heterogeneous structure, such as hard coals. Sorbates used in the test program were the vapours of hexane, hex-1-ene, heptane, hept-1-ene, octane and benzene. Measurement results seem to corroborate the hypothesis that sorption of polar substance vapours is chiefly a surface process. Polarity of hard coals, mostly associated with the presence of reactive oxygen groups (nitrogen and sulphuric groups), largely affects the sorption of polar substances and in a most characteristic manner controls the sorption of apolar ones. In the case of the latter, sorption is induced by the action of the dispersive interaction force between the coal surface and the sorbate's polar molecules. The pattern of sorption isotherms indicates that the presence of dual bond affects the sorbent-sorbate interactions and hence the sorption capacity of investigated coals.