A microporous Zn(II)-MOF with open metal sites: structure and selective adsorption properties

A three-dimensional microporous framework, Zn(II)-MOF [Zn(HPyImDC)(DMA)]n (1) (H3PyImDC = 2-(pyridine-4-yl)-1H-4,5-imidazoledicarboxylic, DMA = N,N'-dimethylacetamide), with open metal sites and small-sized pores, exhibits excellent selective capture of CO2 over N2 and CH4 at 273 K, as well as alcohols from water. The excellent CO2 adsorption selectivity of 1 allows its potential use in the capture of CO2 from industrial flue gas or the removal of CO2 from natural gas. More interestingly, compound represents the rare case of porous materials separating propanol isomers, which may be caused by the relative flexibility of the linear n-propanol considering that both n-propanol and i-propanol have similar kinetic diameters.