Solvent-Induced Topological Variation in Zn-Triazolate-Dicarboxylate Pillared-Layer Frameworks for Multicomponent Ethylene Purification

The exploration of the solvent effect on metal-organic framework (MOF) structure is crucial for promoting their structural chemistry and expanding potential applications. Metal-triazolate-dicarboxylate pillared-layer frameworks, featuring adjustable pore structures, exhibit considerable promise for gas adsorption applications. Under identical conditions, two distinct topological pillared-layer framework structures were successfully synthesized using different solvents: Zn-mfa-atz-rob (rob-type) and Zn-mfa-atz-pcu (pcu-type). In the synthetic process, the solvent serves as a template agent, resulting in substantially different structures. The utilization of H₂O/EtOH yielded a rob-type framework, whereas DMF/H₂O/MeOH produced the pcu-type framework. Additionally, breakthrough experiments revealed that Zn-mfa-atz-pcu efficiently generated high-purity C₂H₄ (>99.9%) in a single step at ambient temperature from equimolar quaternary CO₂/C₂H₂/C₂H₆/C₂H₄ mixtures.