Beyond Nitrogen Generation: Breakthroughs of Carbon Molecular Sieves in Advanced Separation and Catalysis
Jan 30, 2026
When carbon molecular sieves (CMS) are mentioned, most people first associate them with pressure swing adsorption (PSA) for nitrogen production. However, with the upgrading of preparation technologies, the application boundaries of this material are constantly expanding. Endowed with a well-developed pore structure, uniform pore size distribution and excellent thermal stability, carbon molecular sieves are demonstrating irreplaceable value in high-end fields such as CO₂ capture, hydrogen purification, petrochemical separation and catalytic conversion, emerging as a key material driving the upgrading of low-carbon industry and high-end manufacturing.
Driven by the "dual carbon" goals, CO₂ capture and separation have become an important research focus. As a solid adsorbent, carbon molecular sieves exhibit outstanding performance in CO₂ separation. Their microporous structure enables precise molecular sieving of CO₂ from gases such as CH₄ and H₂, making them particularly suitable for natural gas purification and coal bed methane separation. Compared with the traditional amine absorption method, the CMS adsorption method is non-corrosive, free of secondary pollution and lower in energy consumption. It can effectively reduce CO₂ emissions from industrial waste gas and contribute to carbon neutrality. Studies have shown that through modification treatments (e.g., introducing a hierarchical pore structure and adjusting micropore volume), the CO₂ adsorption capacity and separation factor of carbon molecular sieves can be significantly improved, further expanding their application scenarios in the field of carbon capture.
As the core of clean energy, hydrogen energy places extremely high demands on separation materials in its purification process. Relying on its sub-angstrom level pore size regulation capability, carbon molecular sieves can efficiently separate H₂ from impurity gases such as CH₄ and CO₂. New-type carbon molecular sieves have achieved precise pore size control at the 0.1 angstrom level through technologies such as CO₂ concentration gradient activation and double-crosslinked polyimide. Their H₂/CH₄ selectivity can reach 3807-6538 with a markedly improved H₂ permeability, and the separation energy consumption is only 1/3 to 1/5 of that of the traditional distillation method. This greatly reduces the cost of hydrogen purification and provides support for the industrialization of hydrogen energy.
In the petrochemical field, carbon molecular sieves have solved the industry-wide challenge of olefin/paraffin separation. Propylene and propane, as well as ethylene and ethane, have minimal differences in molecular size, resulting in high energy consumption and low efficiency of traditional separation processes. New-type carbon molecular sieves construct a uniform microporous structure through the accurate pyrolysis-rearrangement synergy technology, with a C₃H₆/C₃H₈ adsorption ratio exceeding 100. Some of their performance indicators have broken through the Robeson upper bound, enabling efficient separation of the above-mentioned gas pairs, improving the purity and yield of petrochemical products and reducing production energy consumption.
Carbon molecular sieves also show unique advantages as catalysts or catalyst carriers. In the process of biomass conversion, they can realize the comprehensive conversion of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, avoiding the generation of a large amount of acid-containing waste residue and reducing environmental pollution and coking problems. Their abundant microporous structure can provide sufficient catalytic active sites; by loading metal active sites, they can be applied to reactions such as hydrogenation and dehydrogenation, integrating the functions of molecular sieving and catalysis and driving the development of green chemical processes.
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