We report a computational investigation of the sorption of methane int
o a number of different siliceous microporous sorbents. We find that t
he site distributions in the sorbed systems depend strongly on both th
e structure of the host and the degree of loading. Our calculations sh
ow that there is extensive clustering of the methane molecules in chab
azite silica in contrast to the structures arrived at by simulation fo
r methane sorbed into the mordenite framework. The value of our method
ology is underlined by the good agreement between calculated and exper
imental data for methane sorbed in silicalite-I. (C) 1997 Elsevier Sci
ence B.V.