Cooperative binding, whereby an initial binding event facilitates the uptake of additional substrate molecules, is common in biological systems such as haemoglobin. It was recently shown that porous solids that exhibit cooperative binding have substantial energetic benefits over traditional adsorbents, but few guidelines currently exist for the design of such materials. In principle, metal-organic frameworks that contain coordinatively unsaturated metal centres could act as both selective and cooperative adsorbents if guest binding at one site were to trigger an electronic transformation that subsequently altered the binding properties at neighbouring metal sites. Here we illustrate this concept through the selective adsorption of carbon monoxide (CO) in a series of metal-organic frameworks featuring coordinatively unsaturated iron(ii) sites. Functioning via a mechanism by which neighbouring iron(ii) sites undergo a spin-state transition above a threshold CO pressure, these materials exhibit large CO separation capacities with only small changes in temperature. The very low regeneration energies that result may enable more efficient Fischer-Tropsch conversions and extraction of CO from industrial waste feeds, which currently underutilize this versatile carbon synthon. The electronic basis for the cooperative adsorption demonstrated here could provide a general strategy for designing efficient and selective adsorbents suitable for various separations.

The metal-organic frameworks M(m-dobdc) (M = Mn, Fe, Co, Ni; m-dobdc = 4,6-dioxido-1,3-benzenedicarboxylate) were evaluated as adsorbents for separating olefins from paraffins. Using single-component and multicomponent equilibrium gas adsorption measurements, we show that the coordinatively unsaturated M sites in these materials lead to superior performance for the physisorptive separation of ethylene from ethane and propylene from propane relative to any known adsorbent, including para-functionalized structural isomers of the type M(p-dobdc) (p-dobdc = 2,5-dioxido-1,4-benzenedicarboxylate). Notably, the M(m-dobdc) frameworks all exhibit an increased affinity for olefins over paraffins relative to their corresponding structural isomers, with the Fe, Co, and Ni variants showing more than double the selectivity. Among these frameworks, Fe(m-dobdc) displays the highest ethylene/ethane (>25) and propylene/propane (>55) selectivity under relevant conditions, together with olefin capacities exceeding 7 mmol/g. Differential enthalpy calculations in conjunction with structural characterization of ethylene binding in Co(m-dobdc) and Co(p-dobdc) via in situ single-crystal X-ray diffraction reveal that the vast improvement in selectivity arises from enhanced metal-olefin interactions induced by increased charge density at the metal site. Moderate olefin binding enthalpies, below 55 and 70 kJ/mol for ethylene and propylene, respectively, indicate that these adsorbents maintain sufficient reversibility under mild regeneration conditions. Additionally, transient adsorption experiments show fast kinetics, with more than 90% of ethylene adsorption occurring within 30 s after dosing. Breakthrough measurements further indicate that Co(m-dobdc) can produce high purity olefins without a temperature swing, an important test of process applicability. The excellent olefin/paraffin selectivity, high olefin capacity, rapid adsorption kinetics, and low raw materials cost make the M(m-dobdc) frameworks the materials of choice for adsorptive olefin/paraffin separations.

Gas separations with porous materials are economically important and provide a unique challenge to fundamental materials design, as adsorbent properties can be altered to achieve selective gas adsorption. Metal−organic frameworks represent a rapidly expanding new class of porous adsorbents with a large range of possibilities for designing materials with desired functionalities. Given the large number of possible framework structures, quantum mechanical computations can provide useful guidance in prioritizing the synthesis of the most useful materials for a given application. Here, we show that such calculations can predict a new metal− organic framework of potential utility for separation of dinitrogen from methane, a particularly challenging separation of critical value for utilizing natural gas. An open V(II) site incorporated into a metal−organic framework can provide a material with a considerably higher enthalpy of adsorption for dinitrogen than for methane, based on strong selective back bonding with the former but not the latter. ■ INTRODUCTIONCoordination of dinitrogen to transition-metal cations is important both fundamentally and industrially. Dinitrogen is highly inert and generally considered to be a poor ligand. In 1965, however, it was shown that a simple coordination complex, [Ru(NH 3 ) 5 ] 2+ , could reversibly bind N 2 . 1 In subsequent years, a number of dinitrogen−transition-metal complexes have been isolated for metals in varying oxidation states with various coordination numbers. 2,3 These complexes typically feature low-valent, relatively reducing metal cations coordinated to dinitrogen in an end-on binding mode. Activating dinitrogen at a metal center to promote its reduction by hydrogen to ammonia under moderate conditions remains a critical goal for homogeneous catalysis. Somewhat weaker metal−dinitrogen binding, however, may be useful for adsorptive separation of gas mixtures. An example is provided by the need to remove dinitrogen (an omnipresent but noncombustible contaminant) from natural gas or other methane-rich gases. This is an extraordinarily difficult separation based on physical properties alone, as both gases lack a permanent dipole and have similar polarizabilities, boiling points, and kinetic diameters. Although cryogenic distillation is currently utilized for separation of these gases, the cost-and capital-intensive nature of this separation has led to development of a number of competing processes, such as membraneor kinetics-based separations, which generally suffer from low selectivities. 4

Purification of the C alkylaromatics o-xylene, m-xylene, p-xylene, and ethylbenzene remains among the most challenging industrial separations, due to the similar shapes, boiling points, and polarities of these molecules. Herein, we report the evaluation of the metal-organic frameworks Co(dobdc) (dobdc = 2,5-dioxido-1,4-benzenedicarboxylate) and Co( m-dobdc) ( m-dobdc = 4,6-dioxido-1,3-benzenedicarboxylate) for the separation of xylene isomers using single-component adsorption isotherms and multicomponent breakthrough measurements. Remarkably, Co(dobdc) distinguishes among all four molecules, with binding affinities that follow the trend o-xylene > ethylbenzene > m-xylene > p-xylene. Multicomponent liquid-phase adsorption measurements further demonstrate that Co(dobdc) maintains this selectivity over a wide range of concentrations. Structural characterization by single-crystal X-ray diffraction reveals that both frameworks facilitate the separation through the extent of interaction between each C guest molecule with two adjacent cobalt(II) centers, as well as the ability of each isomer to pack within the framework pores. Moreover, counter to the presumed rigidity of the M(dobdc) structure, Co(dobdc) exhibits an unexpected structural distortion in the presence of either o-xylene or ethylbenzene that enables the accommodation of additional guest molecules.

A new metal-organic framework, Fe-BTTri (Fe3[(Fe4Cl)3(BTTri)8]2·18CH3OH, H3BTTri =1,3,5-tris(1H-1,2,3-triazol-5-yl)benzene)), is found to be highly selective in the adsorption of CO over a variety of other gas molecules, making it extremely effective, for example, in the removal of trace CO from mixtures with H2, N2, and CH4. This framework not only displays significant CO adsorption capacity at very low pressures (1.45 mmol/g at just 100 μbar), but, importantly, also exhibits readily reversible CO binding. Fe-BTTri utilizes a unique spin state change mechanism to bind CO in which the coordinatively unsaturated, high-spin Fe(II) centers of the framework convert to octahedral, low-spin Fe(II) centers upon CO coordination. Desorption of CO converts the Fe(II) sites back to a high-spin ground state, enabling the facile regeneration and recyclability of the material. This spin state change is supported by characterization via infrared spectroscopy, single crystal X-ray analysis, Mössbauer spectroscopy, and magnetic susceptibility measurements. Importantly, the spin state change is selective for CO and is not observed in the presence of other gases, such as H2, N2, CO2, CH4, or other hydrocarbons, resulting in unprecedentedly high selectivities for CO adsorption for use in CO/H2, CO/N2, and CO/CH4 separations and in preferential CO adsorption over typical strongly adsorbing gases like CO2 and ethylene. While adsorbate-induced spin state transitions are well-known in molecular chemistry, particularly for CO, to our knowledge this is the first time such behavior has been observed in a porous material suitable for use in a gas separation process. Potentially, this effect can be extended to selective separations involving other π-acids.