Hydrocarbons along with CO2 often occupy the pores and fractures of complex earth materials at a wide range of length scales. Confinement of these species affects their behavior via several factors that include the interactions between the confined species and the host porous material, temperature and pressure conditions, humidity etc. TiO2 offers the opportunity to tailor make irregular and stable porous structures of the desired pore-size to serve as a proxy for the porous rocks and is a material of interest for its use in the photo catalytic reduction of CO2 to hydrocarbons and methanol. Here we report a quasielastic neutron scattering study on the dynamics of propane confined in mesoporous TiO2 (4nm pores) at elevated temperatures and pressures and the effect of the presence of CO2 on these properties.For propane adsorbed in TiO2 spectra, quasielastic broadening over the spectra corresponding to the evacuated TiO2 was observed for all the conditions of elevated pressures and CO2 presence. The increase in the quasielastic width with pressure showed a jump going from low to high pressures and the presence of CO2 further enhanced this width indicating a faster motion at higher pressures and in the presence of CO2.Acknowledgment.   This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences.Fig. Quasielastic neutron scattering spectra collected for the system of propane and CO2 in TiO2

Effect of CO<sub>2</sub> presence on the dynamics of propane confined in nanoporous TiO<sub>2</sub>

247th National Meeting (2014)

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Effect of CO2 presence on the dynamics of propane confined in nanoporous TiO2

Effect of CO₂ presence on the dynamics of propane confined in nanoporous TiO₂