Efficient ethylene purification by a robust ethane-trapping porous organic cage

Kongzhao Su, Wenjing Wang, Shunfu Du, Chunqing Ji and Daqiang Yuan ()
Additional contact information
Kongzhao Su: State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wenjing Wang: State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shunfu Du: State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chunqing Ji: State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Daqiang Yuan: State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract The removal of ethane (C2H6) from its analogous ethylene (C2H4) is of paramount importance in the petrochemical industry, but highly challenging due to their similar physicochemical properties. The use of emerging porous organic cage (POC) materials for C2H6/C2H4 separation is still in its infancy. Here, we report the benchmark example of a truncated octahedral calix[4]resorcinarene-based POC adsorbent (CPOC-301), preferring to adsorb C2H6 than C2H4, and thus can be used as a robust absorbent to directly separate high-purity C2H4 from the C2H6/C2H4 mixture. Molecular modelling studies suggest the exceptional C2H6 selectivity is due to the suitable resorcin[4]arene cavities in CPOC-301, which form more multiple C–H···π hydrogen bonds with C2H6 than with C2H4 guests. This work provides a fresh avenue to utilize POC materials for highly selective separation of industrially important hydrocarbons.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24042-7 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:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-24042-7

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24042-7

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 ().