Separations of gas mixtures can be highly relevant to global sustainability. Remarkable energy savings can be accessed by improving the efficiency of industrial gas separations, and higher quality petroleum separations can generate purer products and therefore avoid the use of toxic additives in gasoline. The work here presents the investigation of metal-organic frameworks for tackling this class of industrially-relevant gas separations. The tunable nature of these crystalline, permanently porous materials allows for selective, adsorptive binding of gases from a wide range of gas mixtures. Metal-organic framework adsorbents have been shown to improve on processes that have been assumed to be optimized for decades, such as CO2/H2 separations. Perhaps more exciting is the achievement of separations that were previously unattainable in an industrial setting, specifically hydrocarbon isomer separations. These results are therefore not only germane to applied science but also contribute to the fundamental science of selectivity and adsorption.

Separation of industrially-relevant gas mixtures with metal-organic frameworks

248th National Meeting (2014)

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