Hua Gui-Fang, Xie Xiao-Jing, Lu Weigang, Li Dan
College of Chemistry and Materials Science, and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional Supramolecular Coordination Materials and Applications, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, P. R. China.
Dalton Trans. 2020 Nov 17;49(44):15548-15559. doi: 10.1039/d0dt03013a.
C2 separation is of great importance in the petrochemical industry. Traditionally, it is performed by distillation at cryogenic temperatures, which necessitates the consumption of a huge amount of energy to operate the refrigeration system in the production process. In this regard, it is imperative to seek alternative separation methods with high efficiency and low energy cost. Although of recent origin, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have already been extensively studied as advanced adsorbents in many applications, and significant progress has been made particularly in gas separation owing to their unprecedented porosity and tunable structures. In this review, we extrapolated three most frequently invoked design strategies for efficient C2 separation hinged upon supramolecular interactions, including molecular sieving, gate opening, and surface engineering. Recent progress of MOF materials in C2 separation was highlighted within each of these strategies, and their advantages and limitations are compared and discussed. Accordingly, we provide perspectives on current challenges and future emphases in designing MOF materials for hydrocarbon separation. With our continued efforts in this area, we expect that integrating supramolecular interactions in a single MOF system is a viable approach to achieve a balance between adsorption capacity and selectivity for different hydrocarbon separation scenarios.
C2 分离在石油化工行业中至关重要。传统上，它是通过低温蒸馏来实现的，这在生产过程中需要消耗大量能量来运行制冷系统。因此，寻求高效且低能耗的替代分离方法势在必行。金属有机框架材料（MOFs）尽管起源较晚，但已在许多应用中作为先进吸附剂得到广泛研究，特别是在气体分离方面取得了显著进展，这得益于其前所未有的孔隙率和可调节结构。在本综述中，我们推断了基于超分子相互作用的三种最常被提及的高效 C2 分离设计策略，包括分子筛分、门控开启和表面工程。在每种策略中都突出了 MOF 材料在 C2 分离方面的最新进展，并对它们的优缺点进行了比较和讨论。因此，我们对设计用于烃类分离的 MOF 材料的当前挑战和未来重点提供了展望。随着我们在这一领域的持续努力，我们期望在单一 MOF 系统中整合超分子相互作用是一种在不同烃类分离场景下实现吸附容量和选择性平衡的可行方法。
