Simplified local density model for gas adsorption in cylindrical carbon pores

Abstract Carbon materials, coal-bed methane and shale gas reservoirs contain various carbon pore geometries like slit and cylinder. Simplified local density (SLD) model is a beneficial and widely recognized method for gas adsorption in slit-like carbon pore, and hasn't been completely extended from slit-like carbon pore to cylindrical carbon pore, which restricts its actual application. Herein, a SLD-cylinder model is established by obtaining the key parameters (i.e. attractive parameter and co-volume parameter in adsorbed phase) with the introduction of dummy attractive potential and the validation with clean energy gas (i.e. H2 and CH4) computational adsorption results. Meanwhile, for this model, the effect of carbon layers and the sphere of application are fully discussed here. Furthermore, based on SLD-cylinder model, isobars and isotherms of H2 and CH4 at a temperature ranging from 213 to 413 K and a pressure ranging from 1 to 10 MPa are investigated in 2.7 nm and 1.35 nm cylindrical pores. We find that carbon layer number is an essential factor for gas adsorption calculation in a cylindrical pore. Also, the SLD-cylinder model is applicable for the pressure higher than ambient one and the pore size larger than 1 nm. Moreover, owing to the significant effect of bulk fluid density (BFD) on excess adsorption, for CH4 especially, the shapes of isobar and excess isotherm vary mightily with pressure and temperature, respectively. This understanding could be applied to the storage of clean energy gas and the recovering of coal-bed methane (CBM) and shale gas. Therefore, the new developed SLD-cylinder model is as useful as the original SLD-slit model in the applications of gas storage, unconventional gas reservoirs recovering and pore structure characterization.