New activated-carbon materials for systems of storing natural gas in an absorbed state

This article presents the results of an experimental study of microporous carbon materials: Busofit-type activated carbon fiber and activated carbon sorbents made of industrial wood residue by an original technology, developed in the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Large specific surfaces of the investigated samples and volumes of micropores bear evidence to a substantial potential of these materials for the purposes of natural gas storage. This is supported by the methane sorption isotherms, received for particular samples. The studied materials possess a sufficiently high sorption capacity for methane (8-12 wt.%) at a pressure of 3.5 MPa and a temperature of 20°C. A linear equation for assessing the sorption capacity of materials for methane, depending on the specific surface of the samples, is proposed on the basis of the authors' experimental data and the literature data. The increase in the bulk density of methane storage is associated primarily with the increase in the bulk density of sorbents. Thus, if we increase the density of the materials to 1.1 kg/liter, simultaneously preserving their sorption properties, we can achieve the methane storage densities on the order of 180 liter/liter, which corresponds to systems for storage and transportation of compressed natural gas at a pressure of 200-250 atm.