Carbon nanotubes kinetic separations

Kinetic Separations. As discussed in Chapter 5, carbon molecular sieves have already been used for gas separation that is based on differences in diffusivities of different gas molecules. The same separations should also be possible with carbon nanotubes. To this end, a number of simulation studies have been carried out. Mao and Sinnott (2000 and 2001) have reported molecular dynamics simulation results for diffusion of methane, ethane, n-butane, and isobutene, as well as their binary mixtures, in SWNTs and their bundles. As expected, diffusion of smaller molecules is faster, for example a factor of 25 was obtained for melhane/isobutene in a (8,8) nanotube (Mao and Sinnott, 2001). 

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