One-step ethylene production from a four-component gas mixture by a single physisorbent

Jian-Wei Cao, Soumya Mukherjee, Tony Pham, Yu Wang, Teng Wang, Tao Zhang, Xue Jiang, Hui-Juan Tang, Katherine A. Forrest, Brian Space, Michael J. Zaworotko () and Kai-Jie Chen ()
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Jian-Wei Cao: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Soumya Mukherjee: University of Limerick
Tony Pham: University of South Florida
Yu Wang: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Teng Wang: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Tao Zhang: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Xue Jiang: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Hui-Juan Tang: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Katherine A. Forrest: University of South Florida
Brian Space: University of South Florida
Michael J. Zaworotko: University of Limerick
Kai-Jie Chen: Northwestern Polytechnical University

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract One-step adsorptive purification of ethylene (C2H4) from four-component gas mixtures comprising acetylene (C2H2), ethylene (C2H4), ethane (C2H6) and carbon dioxide (CO2) is an unmet challenge in the area of commodity purification. Herein, we report that the ultramicroporous sorbent Zn-atz-oba (H2oba = 4,4-dicarboxyl diphenyl ether; Hatz = 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole) enables selective adsorption of C2H2, C2H6 and CO2 over C2H4 thanks to the binding sites that lie in its undulating pores. Molecular simulations provide insight into the binding sites in Zn-atz-oba that are responsible for coadsorption of C2H2, C2H6 and CO2 over C2H4. Dynamic breakthrough experiments demonstrate that the selective binding exhibited by Zn-atz-oba can produce polymer-grade purity (>99.95%) C2H4 from binary (1:1 for C2H4/C2H6), ternary (1:1:1 for C2H2/C2H4/C2H6) and quaternary (1:1:1:1 for C2H2/C2H4/C2H6/CO2) gas mixtures in a single step.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26473-8

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