Industrial gas drying, dilute gas mixtures purification, air fractionation, hydrogen production from steam reformers and petroleum refinery off-gases, etc are conducted by using adsorptive separation technology. The pressure swing adsorption (PSA) has certain advantages over the other methods, such as absorption and membrane, that are a low energy requirement and cost-effectiveness. A key component of PSA systems is adsorbents that should be highly selective to a gas being separated from its mixture streams and have isotherms suitable for the operation principle. The six standard types of isotherms have been examined in this review, and among them the best behavior in the adsorption of $CO_2$ as a function of pressure was proposed in aspects of maximizing a working capacity upon excursion between adsorption and desorption cycles. Zeolites and molecular sieves are historically typical adsorbents for such PSA applications in gas and related industries, and their physicochemical features, e.g., framework, channel structure, pore size, Si-to-Al ratio (SAR), and specific surface area, are strongly associated with the extent of $CO_2$ adsorption at given conditions and those points have been extensively described with literature data. A great body of data of $CO_2$ adsorption on the nanoporous zeolitic materials have been collected according to pressure ranges adsorbed, and these isotherms have been discussed to get an insight into a better $CO_2$ adsorbent for PSA processes.