Pore chemistry and geometry control in a metal azolate framework for one-step ethylene purification from quinary gas mixture

Lu Zhang; Hongwei Chen; Puxu Liu; Yang Chen; Yutao Liu; Rui-Biao Lin; Xiao-Ming Chen; Jinping Li; Libo Li

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.11.096

Pore chemistry and geometry control in a metal azolate framework for one-step ethylene purification from quinary gas mixture

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Feb 15:656:538-544. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.11.096. Epub 2023 Nov 17.

Authors

Lu Zhang¹, Hongwei Chen¹, Puxu Liu¹, Yang Chen¹, Yutao Liu¹, Rui-Biao Lin², Xiao-Ming Chen², Jinping Li¹, Libo Li³

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemical Engineering and Technology, State Key Laboratory of Clean and Efficient Coal Utilization, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China.
² Key Laboratory of Bioinorganic and Synthetic Chemistry of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry, IGCME, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
³ College of Chemical Engineering and Technology, State Key Laboratory of Clean and Efficient Coal Utilization, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China. Electronic address: lilibo@tyut.edu.cn.

PMID: 38007945
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.11.096

Abstract

In the petrochemical industry, obtaining polymer-grade ethylene from complex light-hydrocarbon mixtures by one-step separation is important and challenging. Here, we successfully prepared the Metal-Azolate Framework 7 (MAF-7) with pore chemistry and geometry control to realize the one-step separation of ethylene from cracking gas with up to quinary gas mixtures (propane/propylene/ethane/ethylene/acetylene). Based on the tailor-made pore environment, MAF-7 exhibited better selective adsorption of propane, propylene, ethane and acetylene than ethylene, and the adsorption ratios of ethane/ethylene and propylene/ethylene are as high as 1.49 and 2.81, respectively. The pore geometry design of MAF-7 leads to the unique weak binding affinity and adsorption site for ethylene molecules, which is clearly proved by Grand Canonical Monte Carlo theoretical calculations. The breakthrough experiments show that ethylene can be directly obtained from binary, ternary, and quinary gas mixtures. These comprehensive properties show that MAF-7 is expected to achieve one-step purification of ethylene in complex light hydrocarbon mixtures.

Keywords: Adsorption; Ethylene purification; Metal–azolate framework; Separation.