Influence of Structural Determinants on Dihydrogen Adsorption and Isotopologue Separation in Nanoporous Metal–Organic Frameworks
Efficient separation of dihydrogen isotopologues, particularly D<sub>2</sub>, is critical for applications in nuclear energy technology and environmental sciences. Conventional methods, such as cryogenic distillation, are energy-intensive and provide limited selectivity (S ≈ 1.4). Here, we report a systematic evaluation of diverse MOFs with ultramicropores, open metal sites (OMS), and framework flexibility for D<sub>2</sub>/H<sub>2</sub> separation. Thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) and adsorption studies revealed that ultramicroporous MOFs enable preferential D<sub>2</sub> adsorption via kinetic quantum sieving, while bimetallic Ni-MOF-74(Co) achieves high selectivity (S = 52 at 77 K) through OMS-driven chemical affinity quantum sieving. Flexible MOFs, [Cu<sub>2</sub>(<sup>n</sup>Pr-trz-ia)<sub>2</sub>] and [Cu<sub>2</sub>(Et-trz-ia)<sub>2</sub>], show temperature-responsive cryogenic flexibility with selectivities of 1.4-2.3 at 77 K. These findings highlight structural design as the key to advancing dihydrogen isotopologue separation at practical temperatures.
Authors
- Sibo Chetry (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-2719-2944)
- Mahnaz Bakhtian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4062-8794)
- Partho Sarkar
- Harald Krautscheid (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5931-5440)
- M. Hirscher
Institutions
- Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (DE)
- Tohoku University (JP)
- Separation Systems (United States) (US)
- Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (DE)
- Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University
- Leipzig University (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
- Published
- 2026-02-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5c24726
- Primary Topic
- Metal-Organic Frameworks: Synthesis and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00