One new MOF with hierarchical pores achieving efficient one-step purifying C2H2, recycling CH4 and eliminating CO2 in C2H2 production

Producing acetylene (C2H2) from natural gas is a significant industry process in chemical manufacture. However, the challenge of obtaining pure C2H2 from raw methane (CH4) and combustion exhaust carbon dioxide (CO2) following the reaction has remained an urgent issue. Herein, we reported one new metal-organic framework material, Zn2(OATA)(DPA), with rich functional sites in pores and hierarchical pore construction by ligand design, which leads to preferentially bind to C2H2 and displace CO2 when both C2H2 and CO2 are present. The material showed considerable C2H2 adsorption capacity with significant selectivity radios of C2H2/CO2 (2.7) and C2H2/CH4 (20.2) at 298 K and 100 kPa. Breakthrough experiments revealed an effective separation for C2H2/ CH4, CO2/CH4, and C2H2/CO2 mixtures. Specially, the material also achieved one-step separation of the trinary C2H2/CO2/CH4 mixtures, purifying C2H2 (99.8%) and recovering CH4 (99.95%) products simultaneously, yielding 11.6 and 3.1 L kg- 1 , respectively, which was rarely reported in MOF separation applications.