Customized pore fluorination in a microporous metal-organic framework for efficient ethane/ethylene separation

High efficiency and energy-saving separation of C2H6/C2H4 mixtures to product high purity C2H4 is vital and very meaningful industrial task. However, it remains a formidable challenge to fabricate high-performance adsorbents with simultaneous high C2H6 uptake and moderate adsorption enthalpy. Here, we reported a microporous MOF (NKU-0821) with suitable aperture size and F atoms functional pore surface, which can capture efficiently C2H6 from C2H6/C2H4 mixture. Single-component adsorption experiments show that NKU-0821a (activated NKU-0821) exhibits preferred C2H6 uptake at the full-pressure region than C2H4. The corresponding C2H6 adsorption enthalpy of NKU-0821a is 27.3 kJ mol−1, which is lower than most famous C2H6-selective MOFs. The calculation of IAST selectivity and breakthrough experiments have shown NKU-0821a can effectively separate C2H6/C2H4 mixture under simulated industrial conditions. Moreover, GCMC simulations revealed the key role of fluorous surface.