Crystal engineering of porous coordination networks to enable separation of C2 hydrocarbons
Crystal engineering, the field of chemistry that studies the design, properties, and applications of crystals, is exemplified by the emergence over the past thirty years of porous coordination networks (PCNs), including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and hybrid coordination networks (HCNs). PCNs ha...
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| Published in | Chemical communications (Cambridge, England) Vol. 56; no. 72; pp. 1419 - 1441 |
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| Main Authors | , , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
Cambridge
Royal Society of Chemistry
16.09.2020
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| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Crystal engineering, the field of chemistry that studies the design, properties, and applications of crystals, is exemplified by the emergence over the past thirty years of porous coordination networks (PCNs), including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and hybrid coordination networks (HCNs). PCNs have now come of age thanks to their amenability to design from first principles and how this in turn can result in new materials with task-specific features. Herein, we focus upon how control over the pore chemistry and pore size of PCNs has been leveraged to create a new generation of physisorbents for efficient purification of light hydrocarbons (LHs). The impetus for this research comes from the need to address LH purification processes based upon cryogenic separation, distillation, chemisorption or solvent extraction, each of which is energy intensive. Adsorptive separation by physisorbents (in general) and PCNs (in particular) can offer two advantages over these existing approaches: improved energy efficiency; lower plant size/cost. Unfortunately, most existing physisorbents suffer from low uptake and/or poor sorbate selectivity and are therefore unsuitable for trace separations of LHs including the high volume C2 LHs (C
2
H
x
,
x
= 2, 4, 6). This situation is rapidly changing thanks to PCN sorbents that have set new performance benchmarks for several C2 separations. Herein, we review and analyse PCN sorbents with respect to the supramolecular chemistry of sorbent-sorbate binding and detail the crystal engineering approaches that have enabled the exquisite control over pore size and pore chemistry that affords highly selective binding sites. Whereas the structure-function relationships that have emerged offer important design principles, several development roadblocks remain to be overcome.
Diverse crystal engineering principles employed in the discovery of porous coordination networks for the selective separation of C2 gases reveal that control of pore size and pore chemistry emerges as the key to unlock their outstanding performances. |
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| Bibliography: | Debobroto Sensharma received his undergraduate degree from St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi in 2014 and won the Mohan Katyal Memorial chemistry prize. Following a brief stint working on organoselenium compounds at the lab of Prof. G. Mugesh at the Indian Institute of Science, he then began his PhD on flexible and topologically unusual coordination polymers under Prof. Wolfgang Schmitt at Trinity College Dublin, with a Trinity Research Studentship. After completing his PhD in 2019, he joined the group of Prof. Michael J. Zaworotko at the Bernal Institute, where his postdoctoral research is on the development of next-generation metal-organic materials. Kai-Jie Chen finished his undergraduate study in 2008 at Zhengzhou University, and earned his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Xiao-Ming Chen from Sun Yat-Sen University in 2013. Then he conducted the postdoctoral research in Prof. Michael J. Zaworotko's group at University of Limerick from 2014 to 2018. After that, he joined Northwestern Polytechnical University in 2018 as a full professor. His current research interest is focused on crystal engineering of porous coordination polymers (especially for design of task-specific ultramicropores through exquisite control on pore chemistry and pore size) and related gas separation application. After receiving his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of Calcutta (India), Soumya Mukherjee earned his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry under the tutelage of Prof. Sujit K. Ghosh at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune (India) in 2017. Soumya worked as a Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) funded postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Mike Zaworotko at the Bernal Institute, University of Limerick (Ireland) for three years until 2019. A recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) research fellowship and an awarded member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC), Soumya is keen to develop crystal engineered porous materials that can address global challenges of the current times, particularly materials for energy and environmental sustainability. Dr Mike Zaworotko was born in Wales in 1956 and received his BSc and PhD degrees from Imperial College (1977) and the University of Alabama (1982), respectively. He served as a faculty member at Saint Mary's University, Nova Scotia, Canada, from 1985-1998, at University of Winnipeg, Canada from 1998-1999 and at the University of South Florida, USA, from 1999-2013. In 2013 he joined the University of Limerick, Ireland, where he currently serves as Bernal Chair of Crystal Engineering and Co-Director of the Synthesis and Solid-State Pharmaceutical Centre. Current research interest include the design of metal-organic materials, especially microporous and ultramicroporous sorbents, and multi-component pharmaceutical materials such as cocrystals, hydrates and ionic cocrystals. ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
| ISSN: | 1359-7345 1364-548X |
| DOI: | 10.1039/d0cc04645k |