Tuning Gate‐Opening of a Flexible Metal–Organic Framework for Ternary Gas Sieving Separation

Abstract

In comparison with the fast development of binary mixture separations, ternary mixture separations are significantly more difficult and have rarely been realized by a single material. Herein, a new strategy of tuning the gate-opening pressure of flexible MOFs is developed to tackle such a challenge. As demonstrated by a flexible framework NTU-65, the gate-opening pressure of ethylene (C₂ H₄ ), acetylene (C₂ H₂ ), and carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) can be regulated by temperature. Therefore, efficient sieving separation of this ternary mixture was realized. Under optimized temperature, NTU-65 adsorbed a large amount of C₂ H₂ and CO₂ through gate-opening and only negligible amount of C₂ H₄ . Breakthrough experiments demonstrated that this material can simultaneously capture C₂ H₂ and CO₂ , yielding polymer-grade (>99.99 %) C₂ H₄ from single breakthrough separation.