A stable metal–organic framework with well‐matched pore cavity for efficient acetylene separation
Yang Chen, Yadan Du, Yong Wang, Rajamani Krishna, Libo Li, Jiangfeng Yang, Jinping Li, Bin Mu
Abstract
Abstract Acetylene, an important petrochemical feedstock, is the starting chemical to produce many polymer products. Separating C 2 H 2 from its by‐product mixtures is still an energy‐consuming process and remains challenging. Here, we present a metal–organic framework[Zn 2 (bpy)(btec)], with a desirable pore geometry and stable framework, which demonstrated a high separation performance of C 2 H 2 from simulated mixtures. With the desirable pore dimension and hydrogen bonding sites, Zn 2 (bpy)(btec) shows by far the both highest C 2 H 2 /C 2 H 4 and C 2 H 2 /CO 2 uptake ratios, very high adsorption selectivities and moderately C 2 H 2 uptake of 93.5 cm 3 /cm 3 under 298 K and 1 atm. Not only straightforwardly produced high purity of C 2 H 4 , but also recovered high purity of C 2 H 2 (>98%) in the regeneration process (>92% recovery). More notably, Zn 2 (bpy)(btec) can be straightforwardly synthesized at a large scale under environmentally friendly conditions, and its good water/chemical stability, thermostability, and cyclic stability highlight the promise of this molecular sieving material for industrial C 2 H 2 separation.