1. A Hydrogen‐Bonded yet Hydrophobic Porous Molecular Crystal for Molecular‐Sieving‐like Separation of Butane and Isobutane.
- Author
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Ye, Zi‐Ming, Zhang, Xue‐Wen, Liao, Pei‐Qin, Xie, Yi, Xu, Yan‐Tong, Zhang, Xue‐Feng, Wang, Chao, Liu, De‐Xuan, Huang, Ning‐Yu, Qiu, Ze‐Hao, Zhou, Dong‐Dong, He, Chun‐Ting, and Zhang, Jie‐Peng
- Subjects
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MOLECULAR crystals , *MOLECULAR sieves , *HYDROGEN bonding , *BUTANE , *ADSORPTIVE separation - Abstract
Porous molecular crystals sustained by hydrogen bonds and/or weaker connections are an intriguing type of adsorbents, but they rarely demonstrate efficient adsorptive separation because of poor structural robustness and tailorability. Herein, we report a porous molecular crystal based on hydrogen‐bonded cyclic dinuclear AgI complex, which exhibits exceptional hydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 134°, and high chemical stability in water at pH 2–13. The seemingly rigid adsorbent shows a pore‐opening or nonporous‐to‐porous type butane adsorption isotherm and complete exclusion of isobutane, indicating potential molecular sieving. Quantitative column breakthrough experiments show slight co‐adsorption of isobutane with an experimental butane/isobutane selectivity of 23, and isobutane can be purified more efficiently than for butane. In situ powder/single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction and computational simulations reveal that a trivial guest‐induced structural transformation plays a critical role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2020
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