Yuri Aristov
Boreskov Institute of Catalysis, Russia
Title: Smart functional adsorbents: a harmonization approach
Biography
Biography: Yuri Aristov
Abstract
Adsorption phenomena are known from ancient times and still attract increasing attention for both industrial processes and everyday life. By now, numerous technological applications of adsorbents (gas/liquid separation/purification, gas storage, heat transformation, drug delivery, life support systems on a spacecraft, air conditioning, etc.) are quite advanced. Nevertheless, there is still a big room for their further improvement. In our opinion, the main direction of this improvement could be related to harmonization of the adsorbent with the specific process. Two ways of the harmonization are considered: (a) screening of already available adsorbents to select one, the properties of which fit better (even if not perfectly) the particular adsorptive process and (b) nanotailoring of a novel adsorbent with predetermined properties adapted to the given process. The main idea of the latter approach is that for each adsorptive technology (process, cycle) and its particular conditions there is an optimal adsorbent (OA), the properties of which could enable perfect performance of this process or cycle. Here, we first analyze what exactly the OA is. Quantitative requirements to the adsorbents optimal for several selected applications (gas drying, heat transformation/storage, maintaining relative humidity in museums, shifting equilibrium of catalytic synthesis, extraction of water from atmospheric air) are formulated in terms of the Dubinin adsorption potential and isobar shape. Then, we briefly consider how to synthesize a real material with adsorption properties close to those of the OA. Metal-organic frameworks, aluminophosphates and composite sorbents "salt in porous matrix" are considered as examples.