A stable metal–organic framework with well‐matched pore cavity for efficient acetylene separation

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.