A Chemically Robust 3D Interpenetrated MOF Toward One-Step Methane Purification Along with Six Other Multipurpose Gas...

The development of multipurpose adsorbents for highly efficient separation of various gas mixtures is of great importance; this task becomes highly challenging when the guest constituents have almost similar physicochemical properties. Although many adsorbents have been developed so far targeting flue and biogas separations, natural gas purification, and C₂-hydrocarbon separations; multipurpose materials with high effectivities for all such gas mixtures separations by a single platform are elusive. Herein, we developed a new 3D interpenetrated hydro-stable MOF: IITKGP-21, which displayed impressive capability for C₂H₂/CH₄, C₂H₄/CH₄, C₂H₆/CH₄, CO₂/CH₄, CO₂/N₂, and C₂H₂/C₂H₄ separations even at ambient conditions while maintaining an excellent trade-off between high sorption capacity and separation selectivity. Most importantly, breakthrough simulations not only unveiled the efficient separation capabilities in binary mixtures but also highlighted the effectivity of one-step methane purification with high purity from quaternary (C₂H₂/C₂H₄/C₂H₆/CH₄) mixtures mimicking natural gas composition. Moreover, the facile bulk scalability, ease in accessibility, excellent recyclability, and framework stability further validated the multi-purpose gas separation capability of the developed framework.