Issue 24, 2022

Tailoring a robust Al-MOF for trapping C2H6 and C2H2 towards efficient C2H4 purification from quaternary mixtures

Abstract

Light hydrocarbon separation is considered one of the most industrially challenging and desired chemical separation processes and is highly essential in polymer and chemical industries. Among them, separating ethylene (C2H4) from C2 hydrocarbon mixtures such as ethane (C2H6), acetylene (C2H2), and other natural gas elements (CO2, CH4) is of paramount importance and poses significant difficulty. We demonstrate such separations using an Al-MOF synthesised earlier as a non-porous material, but herein endowed with hierarchical porosity created under microwave conditions in an equimolar water/ethanol solution. The material possessing a large surface area (793 m2 g−1) exhibits an excellent uptake capacity for major industrial hydrocarbons in the order of C2H2 > C2H6 > CO2 > C2H4 > CH4 under ambient conditions. It shows an outstanding dynamic breakthrough separation of ethylene (C2H4) not only for a binary mixture (C2H6/C2H4) but also for a quaternary combination (C2H4/C2H6/C2H2/CO2 and C2H4/C2H6/C2H2/CH4) of varying concentrations. The detailed separation/purification mechanism was unveiled by gas adsorption isotherms, mixed-gas adsorption calculations, selectivity estimations, advanced computer simulations such as density functional theory (DFT), grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) and ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD), and stepwise multicomponent dynamic breakthrough experiments.

Graphical abstract: Tailoring a robust Al-MOF for trapping C2H6 and C2H2 towards efficient C2H4 purification from quaternary mixtures

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
25 2 2022
Accepted
15 5 2022
First published
20 5 2022
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2022,13, 7172-7180

Tailoring a robust Al-MOF for trapping C2H6 and C2H2 towards efficient C2H4 purification from quaternary mixtures

S. Laha, N. Dwarkanath, A. Sharma, D. Rambabu, S. Balasubramanian and T. K. Maji, Chem. Sci., 2022, 13, 7172 DOI: 10.1039/D2SC01180H

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