Selectivity of CO2 via pore space partition in zeolitic boron imidazolate frameworks

Reported here is a versatile method capable of generating pore space partition in zeolitic boron imidazolate frameworks (BIFs), which is based on the coexistence of presynthesized boron imidazolate complexes and charge balancing carboxylate ligands. Using this method, boron imidazolate complexes are used to form zeolitic nets, while the carboxylate serves to partition large channel spaces into multiple domains. The generality of this method is shown by two distinct boron imidazolate frameworks mimicking GIS (BIF-41) and ABW (BIF-42) zeotype topologies. BIF-41 shows high selectivity sorption of CO2 over N-2.