Green and Scalable Preparation of an Isomeric CALF‐20 Adsorbent with Tailored Pore Size for Molecular Sieving of Propylene from Propane
Zhenning Deng, Longsheng Yang, Hanting Xiong, Junhui Liu, Xing Liu, Zhenyu Zhou, Shixia Chen, Yanan Wang, Hao Wang, Jingwen Chen, Shuguang Deng, Banglin Chen, Jun Wang
Abstract
Abstract Molecular sieving of propylene (C 3 H 6 ) from propane (C 3 H 8 ) is highly demanded for C 3 H 6 purification. However, delicate control over aperture size to achieve both high C 3 H 6 uptake and C 3 H 6 /C 3 H 8 selectivity with low cost remains a significant challenge. Herein, a green and scalable approach is reported for preparing an isomeric CALF‐20 adsorbent, termed as NCU‐20, using water as the only solvent with a cost of $10 per kilogram. NCU‐20 features a contracted pore size (4.2 × 4.7 Å 2 ) compared to CALF‐20 (5.2 × 5.7 Å 2 ), which enables molecular sieving of C 3 H 6 (4.16 × 4.65 Å 2 ) from C 3 H 8 (4.20 × 4.80 Å 2 ). Notably, NCU‐20 exhibits record‐high C 3 H 6 adsorption capacity (94.41 cm 3 cm −3 ) at 298 K and 1.0 bar, outperforming all C 3 H 6 /C 3 H 8 molecular sieving adsorbents. The sieving performances of C 3 H 6 /C 3 H 8 are well maintained at elevated temperatures. Therefore, a delicate balance between C 3 H 6 adsorption capacity (91.62 cm 3 cm −3 ) and C 3 H 6 /C 3 H 8 selectivity (uptake ratio of 22.2) is obtained on NCU‐20 at 298 K and 0.5 bar. Furthermore, dynamic breakthrough experiments demonstrate a high productivity of 65.39 cm 3 cm −3 for high‐purity C 3 H 6 (>99.5%) from an equimolar C 3 H 6 /C 3 H 8 gas‐mixture.