Metal-Organic Frameworks for Practical Separation of Cyclic and Linear Polymers

Taku Sawayama; Yubo Wang; Tomohisa Watanabe; Masayoshi Takayanagi; Takuya Yamamoto; Nobuhiko Hosono; Takashi Uemura

doi:10.1002/anie.202102794

Metal-Organic Frameworks for Practical Separation of Cyclic and Linear Polymers

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2021 May 17;60(21):11830-11834. doi: 10.1002/anie.202102794. Epub 2021 Apr 15.

Authors

Taku Sawayama¹, Yubo Wang², Tomohisa Watanabe², Masayoshi Takayanagi^{3

4}, Takuya Yamamoto⁵, Nobuhiko Hosono^{1

6}, Takashi Uemura^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Advanced Materials Science, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba, 277-8561, Japan.
² Graduate School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-8628, Japan.
³ The Center for Data Science Education and Research, Shiga University, Hikone, Shiga, 522-8522, Japan.
⁴ RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0027, Japan.
⁵ Division of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-8628, Japan.
⁶ Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8656, Japan.

PMID: 33733567
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202102794

Abstract

The purification step in the manufacturing of cyclic polymers is difficult as complete fractionation to eliminate linear impurities requires considerable effort. Here, we report a new polymer separation methodology that uses metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to discriminate between linear and cyclic polyethylene glycols (PEGs) via selective polymer insertion into the MOF nanopores. Preparation of a MOF-packed column allowed analytical and preparative chromatographic separation of these topologically distinct pairs. In addition, gram-scale PEGs with only cyclic structures were successfully obtained from a crude reaction mixture by using MOF as an adsorbent.

Keywords: column chromatography; cyclic polymers; macromolecular recognition; metal-organic frameworks; separation.

Abstract

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