The removal of CO 2 impurities from C 2 H 2 -containing gas mixtures is an important step in purifying C 2 H 2 , a feedstock chemical used in the production of several commodity chemicals. However, that C 2 H 2 and CO 2 exhibit similar size and physicochemical properties makes their separation by physisorption extremely difficult. In this work, we detail how two hybrid ultramicroporous materials (HUMs)-known variant SIFSIX-3-Ni and variant TIFSIX-2-Cu-i-exhibit exceptional CO 2 /C 2 H 2 and C 2 H 2 /CO 2 selectivity, respectively. SIFSIX-3-Ni sets a benchmark for CO 2 /C 2 H 2 selectivity at low partial pressures, whereas TIFSIX-2-Cu-i ranks among the best porous materials in the context of C 2 H 2 / CO 2 selectivity. The performance of these HUMs was confirmed by real-time dynamic breakthrough experiments. To our knowledge, such yin-yang inversion of selectivity in closely related compounds is unprecedented. We attribute this to the distinct sorbate binding sites in SIFSIX-3-Ni and TIFSIX-2-Cu-i, as revealed by modeling studies.

The first sorbent with high CO2 selectivity and poor water affinity addresses need for trace CO2 remediation in confined spaces.

Sequestration of CO, either from gas mixtures or directly from air (direct air capture), is a technological goal important to large-scale industrial processes such as gas purification and the mitigation of carbon emissions. Previously, we investigated five porous materials, three porous metal-organic materials (MOMs), a benchmark inorganic material, ZEOLITE 13X: and a chemisorbent, TEPA-SBA-15: , for their ability to adsorb CO directly from air and from simulated flue-gas. In this contribution, a further 10 physisorbent materials that exhibit strong interactions with CO have been evaluated by temperature-programmed desorption for their potential utility in carbon capture applications: four hybrid ultramicroporous materials, SIFSIX-3-CU: , DICRO-3-NI-I: , SIFSIX-2-CU-I: and MOOFOUR-1-NI: ; five microporous MOMs, DMOF-1: , ZIF-8: , MIL-101: , UIO-66: and UIO-66-NH2: ; an ultramicroporous MOM, NI-4-PYC: The performance of these MOMs was found to be negatively impacted by moisture. Overall, we demonstrate that the incorporation of strong electrostatics from inorganic moieties combined with ultramicropores offers improved CO capture performance from even moist gas mixtures but not enough to compete with chemisorbents.This article is part of the themed issue 'Coordination polymers and metal-organic frameworks: materials by design'.

A new hybrid ultramicroporous material, [Ni(1,4-di(pyridine-2-yl)benzene)(CrO)] (DICRO-4-Ni-i), has been prepared and structurally characterized. Pure gas sorption isotherms and molecular modeling of sorbate-sorbent interactions imply strong selectivity for CH over CO (S). Dynamic gas breakthrough coupled with temperature-programmed desorption experiments were conducted on DICRO-4-Ni-i and two other porous materials reported to exhibit high S, TIFSIX-2-Cu-i and MIL-100(Fe), using a CH/CO/He (10:5:85) gas mixture. Whereas CO/CH coadsorption by MIL-100(Fe) mitigated the purity of trapped CH, negligible coadsorption and high S were observed for DICRO-4-Ni-i and TIFSIX-2-Cu-i.