Sequestration of carbon dioxide – influence of coal surface chemistry

The physical gas adsorption is a widely used method for the characterisation of the solids porosity. The water steam, primarilydue to its physicochemical properties and ease of use in the experiment has great potential as a sorbate. When applied to coal, water steam allows to determine the quantity of primary adsorption centers as measurement of interaction of molecules adsorbed to the surface of the adsorbent. In order to determine the adsorption capacity and the chemical nature of the coal surface, adsorption / desorption of water vapour to the selected coals was examined at 303K, using a volumetric method. The presence of water in the coal may affect on the sorption properties of other molecules. The analysis of the results show that the coals of low rank and a high content of oxygen functional groups, which are the active sites, showed a greater affinity to absorbing water molecules. Adsorption isotherms were compiled through approximating the Langmuir and BET linear equation to measurement data. Based on the adsorption equation, the amount of adsorption centers have been specified, which can potentially be involved in the adsorption of CO2 during the injection of gas into the coal seams