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

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 m(2) 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.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates the excellent performance and versatility of a non-porous material with hierarchical porosity in the separation of light hydrocarbon mixtures. The separation mechanism and effectiveness were revealed through various experiments and calculations.