Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jun 28;34(12):5698-5705.
doi: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.2c01097. Epub 2022 Jun 6.

Direct Visualization of Supramolecular Binding and Separation of Light Hydrocarbons in MFM-300(In)

Lixia Guo  1 , Mathew Savage  1 , Joe H Carter  1   2 , Xue Han  1 , Ivan da Silva  3 , Pascal Manuel  3 , Svemir Rudić  3 , Chiu C Tang  2 , Sihai Yang  1 , Martin Schröder  1
Affiliations

Direct Visualization of Supramolecular Binding and Separation of Light Hydrocarbons in MFM-300(In)

Lixia Guo et al. Chem Mater. .

Abstract

The purification of light olefins is one of the most important chemical separations globally and consumes large amounts of energy. Porous materials have the capability to improve the efficiency of this process by acting as solid, regenerable adsorbents. However, to develop translational systems, the underlying mechanisms of adsorption in porous materials must be fully understood. Herein, we report the adsorption and dynamic separation of C2 and C3 hydrocarbons in the metal-organic framework MFM-300(In), which exhibits excellent performance in the separation of mixtures of ethane/ethylene and propyne/propylene. Unusually selective adsorption of ethane over ethylene at low pressure is observed, resulting in selective retention of ethane from a mixture of ethylene/ethane, thus demonstrating its potential for a one-step purification of ethylene (purity > 99.9%). In situ neutron powder diffraction and inelastic neutron scattering reveal the preferred adsorption domains and host-guest binding dynamics of adsorption of C2 and C3 hydrocarbons in MFM-300(In).

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a) View of the infinite chain of [InO4(OH)2]∞ linked by tetracarboxylate ligands (In: green; C: gray; O: red; H: light yellow; hydrogen atoms on the ligands are omitted for clarity). Single-component adsorption isotherms for (b) C2 and (c) C3 hydrocarbons in MFM-300(In) at 293 K. (d) Analysis of IAST selectivity of C2H6/C2H4 for MFM-300(In) at 293 K and 1 bar. (e) Isosteric heats of adsorption (Qst) for C2 and C3 hydrocarbons in MFM-300(In). (f) Adsorption kinetics of C2 and C3 hydrocarbons of MFM-300(In) at 293 K (30–70 mbar).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Dynamic breakthrough plots for single-component (a) C2H4, (b) C2H6, (d) C3H4, and (e) C3H6 with an inlet target gas flow rate of 2.0 mL min–1 diluted in He (total flow rate: 20 mL min–1). Dynamic breakthrough plots for equimolar mixtures of (c) C2H6/C2H4 and (f) C3H4/C3H6 with an inlet gas flow rate of 2.0 mL min–1/2.0 mL min–1 diluted in He (total flow rate: 20 mL min–1) through a fixed-bed packed with MFM-300(In) at 293 K.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Binding sites (site I, orange; site II, green) of (a) acetylene, (b) ethylene, (c) ethane, (d) propyne, (e) propylene, and (f) propane in MFM-300(In) obtained from NPD refinements (In: green; C: gray; O: red; H: light yellow; the [InO4(OH)2] moiety is shown in green octahedron). The e.s.d. values of the bond distances are typically within 0.05 Å.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Comparison of the INS spectra of bare MFM-300(In) and MFM-300(In) loaded with (a) C2H2, (b) C2H4, and (c) C2H6. For comparison, INS spectra of the condensed gas in the solid state are also included.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Sholl D. S.; Lively R. P. Seven Chemical Separations to Change the World. Nature 2016, 532, 435–437. 10.1038/532435a. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Blay V.; Louis B.; Miravalles R.; Yokoi T.; Peccatiello K. A.; Clough M.; Yilmaz B. Engineering Zeolites for Catalytic Cracking to Light Olefins. ACS Catal. 2017, 7, 6542–6566. 10.1021/acscatal.7b02011. - DOI
    1. Ren T.; Patel M.; Blok K. Olefins from Conventional and Heavy Feedstocks: Energy Use in Steam Cracking and Alternative Processes. Energy 2006, 31, 425–451. 10.1016/j.energy.2005.04.001. - DOI
    1. Geng S.; Lin E.; Li X.; Liu W.; Wang T.; Wang Z.; Sensharma D.; Darwish S.; Andaloussi Y. H.; Pham T.; Cheng P.; Zaworotko M. J.; Chen Y.; Zhang Z. Scalable Room-Temperature Synthesis of Highly Robust Ethane-Selective Metal-Organic Frameworks for Efficient Ethylene Purification. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 8654–8660. 10.1021/jacs.1c02108. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Yang R. T.; Kikkinides E. S. New Sorbents for Olefin/Paraffin Separations by Adsorption via π-Complexation. AIChE J. 1995, 41, 509–517. 10.1002/aic.690410309. - DOI