Hybrid molecular simulation of methane storage inside pillared graphene

摘要

In this study, a hybrid molecular dynamics-grand canonical Monte Carlo simulation is carried out to investigate the storage capacity of methane in a new nanostructure adsorbent called pillared graphene. This new nanostructure is composed of graphene sheets in parallel with vertical carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which act as their holders. The adsorption ability of this new structure is compared to graphene sheets to evaluate its potential for methane storage. The results show that in a specific adsorbent volume, applying pillared graphene increases the number of adsorbed methane up to 22 in comparison to graphene sheets. Given the application of various isotherm models such as Langmuir, Freundlich, Sips, and Toth and calculation of their parameters, it is predicted that methane adsorption on pillared graphene displays a heterogeneous behavior. Furthermore, the effects of geometry parameters such as CNTs diameter, the number of CNTs, and graphene sheets layer spacing on the methane uptake are investigated. The results show that the pillared graphene containing 1 CNT per 30 nm(2) graphene sheet areas provides the best configuration for methane adsorption. This optimum structure is characterized by a small diameter of about 0.938 nm and an optimal layer spacing of about 1.2 nm. Finally, our results show that this kind of pillared structure can be suitable for methane storage. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.