A Porous MOF Containing Accessible Open Metal Sites with Low Steric Hindrance for Selective Separation of Hydrocarbons
Conventional hydrocarbon production yields impure products, while solvent-based purification techniques emit volatile pollutants and are energy-intensive. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with open metal sites (OMSs) offer an energy-efficient and eco-friendly alternative, yet steric hindrance from OMSs with traditional geometries restricts multimolecule adsorption. Herein, a stable <b>Ni-MOF</b> incorporating novel seesaw-geometry OMSs was constructed using a 1,3,5-tris(pyrazolyl)benzene ligand. Owing to the presence of accessible low-steric resistance OMSs, the activated MOF displays exceptional binding affinities for CO<sub>2</sub> and C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>2</sub> over C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub> and CH<sub>4</sub>, as well as high ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) selectivities for C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>2</sub>-CO<sub>2</sub>, C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>2</sub>-C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub>, C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>2</sub>-CH<sub>4</sub>, and CO<sub>2</sub>-CH<sub>4</sub> mixtures. Experimental breakthrough curves further validated the potential of <b>Ni-MOF</b> for industrial C<sub>1</sub>/C<sub>2</sub> hydrocarbon purification. Grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulations revealed that the low-steric resistance OMSs could interact strongly with more C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>2</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> molecules, leading to higher affinities and separation abilities.
Authors
- Shu‐Yu Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1811-4159)
- Yao‐Yu Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0800-7093)
- Yanhua Qin
- Ke‐Fen Yue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-3693)
- Xiu‐Yuan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3508-9864)
- Dong‐Sheng Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1283-6334)
- Shihui Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3377-7209)
Institutions
- Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (CN)
- China Three Gorges University (CN)
- Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Xi'an Technological University (CN)
- Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy (CN)
- Advanced Materials and Devices (United States) (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Inorganic Chemistry
- Published
- 2025-06-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.5c02193
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Metal-Organic Frameworks: Synthesis and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.61