An ethane-favored metal-organic framework with tailored pore environment used for efficient ethylene separation

The development of ethane (C2H6)-selective adsorbents displaying high uptake and selectivity to purify ethylene (C2H4) to obtain polymer-grade raw materials is a meaningful, but challenging process. Tailoring the pore chemistry of a metal-organic framework is an effective strategy used to construct high performance adsorbents. Herein, BUT-10 with a tailored pore environment for tuning the C2H6 adsorption ability has been synthesized via introducing functional sites into UiO-67. The single component gas adsorption capacity, adsorption heat and adsorption selectivity of BUT-10 have been proven to be effectively increased after modifying the pore environment. Computational studies have revealed that the stronger adsorption affinity for C2H6 was achieved via multiple adsorbate-framework interactions in the appropriate pore environment. Breakthrough experiments using BUT-10 as a C2H6-selective adsorbent have shown that polymer grade C2H4 was directly produced from C2H6/C2H4 (1/15 v/v) mixtures using a single separation process under ambient conditions.