Adsorption and Absorption Techniques for the Separation of Gaseous C2–C5 Olefins

Abstract

Volatile C2–C5 olefins are important bulk chemicals in the polymer industry. Traditionally, C2–C5 olefins are produced from cracked petroleum resources using an energy-consuming and hazardous distillation method. Currently, volatile olefins can be produced from renewable biomass. To obtain polymer-grade volatile olefins from diversified resources, more sustainable and feasible separation techniques need to be developed. This review focuses on two updated separation techniques for C2–C5 olefins: (a) adsorption separation, which separates olefins through porous affinity, the pi complexation effect, and size-exclusion and gate-opening sieving, and (b) liquid absorption separation, which utilizes either organic solvents or ionic liquids for olefin separation. In this review, different separation techniques are compared in terms of their mechanisms and operation conditions in the separation of different types of C2–C5 olefins from variable resources, such as cracked ethylene/propylene/butylene/isoprene and bio-isoprene.