Probing sub-5 Ångstrom micropores in carbon for precise light olefin/paraffin separation

Shengjun Du, Jiawu Huang, Matthew R. Ryder, Luke L. Daemen, Cuiting Yang, Hongjun Zhang, Panchao Yin, Yuyan Lai, Jing Xiao (), Sheng Dai () and Banglin Chen ()
Additional contact information
Shengjun Du: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology
Jiawu Huang: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology
Matthew R. Ryder: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Luke L. Daemen: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Cuiting Yang: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology
Hongjun Zhang: University of Science and Technology of China
Panchao Yin: South China University of Technology
Yuyan Lai: South China University of Technology
Jing Xiao: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology
Sheng Dai: Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing, University of Tennessee
Banglin Chen: College of Chemistry & Materials Science, Fujian Normal University

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Olefin/paraffin separation is an important but challenging and energy-intensive process in petrochemical industry. The realization of carbons with size-exclusion capability is highly desirable but rarely reported. Herein, we report polydopamine-derived carbons (PDA-Cx, where x refers to the pyrolysis temperature) with tailorable sub-5 Å micropore orifices together with larger microvoids by one-step pyrolysis. The sub-5 Å micropore orifices centered at 4.1–4.3 Å in PDA-C800 and 3.7–4.0 Å in PDA-C900 allow the entry of olefins while entirely excluding their paraffin counterparts, performing a precise cut-off to discriminate olefin/paraffin with sub-angstrom discrepancy. The larger voids enable high C2H4 and C3H6 capacities of 2.25 and 1.98 mmol g−1 under ambient conditions, respectively. Breakthrough experiments confirm that a one-step adsorption-desorption process can obtain high-purity olefins. Inelastic neutron scattering further reveals the host–guest interaction of adsorbed C2H4 and C3H6 molecules in PDA-Cx. This study opens an avenue to exploit the sub-5 Å micropores in carbon and their desirable size-exclusion effect.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36890-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-36890-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36890-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().