Citation: Yajun Gao, Xinyu Yang, Jian Su, Zhizhong Li. A stable scandium(III) metal-organic framework with introduced nitrate ions for enhancing C₂H₆/C₂H₄ selectivity in the separation of MTO products[J]. Chinese Journal of Structural Chemistry, ;2025, 44(6): 100576. doi: 10.1016/j.cjsc.2025.100576 shu

A stable scandium(III) metal-organic framework with introduced nitrate ions for enhancing C₂H₆/C₂H₄ selectivity in the separation of MTO products

Based upon the thiophene-2,5-dicarboxylic acid (H₂Tdc), a novel [Sc₃(μ₂-OH)₃(CO₂)₄O₆]_n inorganic chain-based Sc-MOF with decorated nitrate ions, {[Sc₃(OH)₂(Tdc)₃(NO₃)]⋅H₂O}∞ (AEU-1; AEU for Army Engineering University of PLA), was synthesized, which shows good water and chemical stabilities. Significantly, due to channel constriction accompanied by the polar window caused by introducing nitrate ions, AEU-1 exhibits high C₂H₆/C₂H₄ adsorption selectivity comparable to many famous C₂H₆-selective MOFs, making it a promising candidate for the purification of methanol-to-olefin (MTO) products. Furthermore, theoretical investigations reveal that the introduced nitrate ions in AEU-1 as the main adsorption sites could provide strong interactions between the framework and C₂H₆/C₃H₆ in the full-contacting mode, leading to an increase in the adsorption enthalpies (Qst) of C₂H₆ and C₃H₆, and thus further improving the C₂H₆/C₂H₄ and C₃H₆/C₂H₄ adsorption selectivity. Our work could open up a new avenue for constructing MOFs with inorganic polar moieties as adsorption sites for one-step C₂H₄ purification and C₃H₆ recovery from MTO mixtures with high selectivity.
- Scandium(III) metal-organic framework,
- Nitrate ions,
- Selectivity,
- MTO product separation
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