1997/12/01 by Yisi Yang, Libo Li, Rui‐Biao Lin +10 · 4 citations
Chemistry · Materials Science · Social Sciences · #Covalent Organic Framework Applications #Law, Rights, and Freedoms #Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials #Metal-Organic Frameworks: Synthesis and Applications #Privacy, Security, and Data Protection
paper · doi:10.1038/s41557-021-00740-z
openalex publication_date 1997/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · crossref issued 2021/07/08 · crossref published 2021/07/08 · crossref published-online 2021/07/08 · crossref created 2021/07/08 · crossref deposited 2021/09/30 · crossref published-print 2021/10/01 · crossref indexed 2026/07/15 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Porous materials are very promising for the development of cost- and energy-efficient separation processes, such as for the purification of ethylene from ethylene/ethane mixture-an important but currently challenging industrial process. Here we report a microporous hydrogen-bonded organic framework that takes up ethylene with very good selectivity over ethane through a gating mechanism. The material consists of tetracyano-bicarbazole building blocks held together through intermolecular CN···H-C hydrogen bonding interactions, and forms as a threefold-interpenetrated framework with pores of suitable size for the selective capture of ethylene. The hydrogen-bonded organic framework exhibits a gating mechanism in which the threshold pressure required for guest uptake varies with the temperature. Ethylene/ethane separation is validated by breakthrough experiments with high purity of ethylene (99.1%) at 333 K. Hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks are usually not robust, yet this material was stable under harsh conditions, including exposure to strong acidity, basicity and a variety of highly polar solvents.