The adsorption isotherm, differential thermal gravimetry (DTG), thermal gravimetry (TG), diffusion and thermodynamic parameters of cyclopentane at various adsorption coverages have been investigated using microgravimetric technique over a range of temperature. The differences in equilibrium adsorption capacity and in diffusion coefficient at different temperature are discussed in terms of the characteristics of silicalite-1 and the features of cyclopentane molecule. The heat of sorption Q(st) varies significantly with sorption coverage indicating that the adsorption and diffusion mechanism is complex. The dependences of thermodynamic properties like free energy change (Delta G) and entropy change (Delta S) on sorption coverage show a sharp decrease and increase suggesting that the adsorption sites of the silicalite-1 are not energetically uniform to cyclopentane. Two desorption peaks in the DTG and TG curves suggest that two heterogenous binding sites surely exist in silicalite-1 to cyclopentane. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.