Adsorption behavior of ternary mixtures of noble gases inside single-walled carbon nanotube bundles

In order to study the gas-storage and gas-filtering capability of carbon nanotube (CNT) bundles simultaneously, we considered the adsorption behavior of a ternary mixture of noble gases, including Argon (Ar), Krypton (Kr), and Xenon (Xe), i.e., Ar-Kr-Xe mixture, on (10, 10) single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) bundles. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations at different temperatures of (75, 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300) K were performed, and adsorption energies, self-diffusion coefficients, activation energies, and radial distribution functions (RDFs) were computed to analyze the thermodynamics, transport and structural properties of the adsorption systems. It is observed that the SWCNT bundles have larger contents of heavier noble gases compared to the lighter ones. This interesting behavior of SWCNT bundles makes them proper candidates for gas-storage and gas molecular-sieving processes. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.