Displacement behavior of CH4 adsorbed on coals by injecting pure CO2, N2, and CO2–N2 mixture

Gas adsorption isotherms of Akabira coals were established for pure carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrogen (N2). Experimental data fit well into the Langmuir model. The ratio of sorption capacity of CO2, CH4, and N2 is 8.5:3.5:1 at a lower pressure (1.2 MPa) regime and becomes 5.5:2:1 when gas pressure increases to 6.0 MPa. The difference in sorption capacity of these three gases is explained by differences in the density of the three gases with increasing pressure. A coal–methane system partially saturated with CH4 at 2.4 MPa adsorption pressure was experimentally studied. Desorption behavior of CH4 by injecting pure CO2 (at 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0 MPa), and by injecting the CO2–N2 mixture and pure N2 (at 3.0 and 6.0 MPa) were evaluated. Results indicate that the preferential sorption property of coal for CO2 is significantly higher than that for CH4 or N2. CO2 injection can displace almost all of the CH4 adsorbed on coal. When modeling the CH4–CO2 binary and CH2–CO2–N2 ternary adsorption system by using the extended Langmuir (EL) equation, the EL model always over-predicted the sorbed CO2 value with a lower error, while under-predicting the sorbed CH4 with a higher error. A part of CO2 may dissolve into the solid organic structure of coal, besides its competitive adsorption with other gases. According to this explanation, the EL coefficients of CO2 in EL equation were revised. The revised EL model proved to be very accurate in predicting sorbed ratio of multi-component gases on coals.