Complete separation of benzene-cyclohexene-cyclohexane mixtures via temperature-dependent molecular sieving by a flexible chain-like coordination polymer

作者：Feng Xie, Lihang Chen, Eder Moisés Cedeño Morales, Saif Ullah, Yiwen Fu, Timo Thonhauser, Kui Tan, Zongbi Bao, Jing Li · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1038/s41467-024-46556-6 · 被引用次数：51 · 研究领域：Metal-Organic Frameworks: Synthesis and Applications、Covalent Organic Framework Applications、Membrane Separation and Gas Transport

Abstract The separation and purification of C6 cyclic hydrocarbons (benzene, cyclohexene, cyclohexane) represent a critically important but energy intensive process. Developing adsorptive separation technique to replace thermally driven distillation processes holds great promise to significantly reduce energy consumption. Here we report a flexible one-dimensional coordination polymer as an efficient adsorbent to discriminate ternary C6 cyclic hydrocarbons via an ideal molecular sieving mechanism. The compound undergoes fully reversible structural transformation associated with removal/re-coordination of water molecules and between activated and hydrocarbon-loaded forms. It exhibits distinct temperature- and adsorbate-dependent adsorption behavior which facilitates the complete separation of benzene, cyclohexene and cyclohexane from their binary and ternary mixtures, with the record-high uptake ratios for C 6 H 6 /C 6 H 12 and C 6 H 10 /C 6 H 12 in vapor phase and highest binary and ternary selectivities in liquid phase. In situ infrared spectroscopic analysis and ab initio calculations provide insight into the host-guest interactions and their effect on the preferential adsorption and structural transformation.