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A Hydrogen‐Bonded yet Hydrophobic Porous Molecular Crystal for Molecular‐Sieving‐like Separation of Butane and Isobutane
Author(s) -
Ye ZiMing,
Zhang XueWen,
Liao PeiQin,
Xie Yi,
Xu YanTong,
Zhang XueFeng,
Wang Chao,
Liu DeXuan,
Huang NingYu,
Qiu ZeHao,
Zhou DongDong,
He ChunTing,
Zhang JiePeng
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.202011300
Subject(s) - isobutane , butane , adsorption , hydrogen bond , porous medium , chemical engineering , porosity , materials science , selectivity , molecular dynamics , crystal (programming language) , hydrogen , chemistry , molecule , organic chemistry , computational chemistry , catalysis , computer science , engineering , programming language
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 Ag I 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.