The trade-off between physical adsorption capacity and selectivity of porous materials is a major barrier for efficient gas separation and purification through physisorption. We report control over pore chemistry and size in metal coordination networks with hexafluorosilicate and organic linkers for the purpose of preferential binding and orderly assembly of acetylene molecules through cooperative host-guest and/or guest-guest interactions. The specific binding sites for acetylene are validated by modeling and neutron powder diffraction studies. The energies associated with these binding interactions afford high adsorption capacity (2.1 millimoles per gram at 0.025 bar) and selectivity (39.7 to 44.8) for acetylene at ambient conditions. Their efficiency for the separation of acetylene/ethylene mixtures is demonstrated by experimental breakthrough curves (0.73 millimoles per gram from a 1/99 mixture).

Extensive efforts have been directed at the discovery, investigation and clinical monitoring of targeted therapeutics. These efforts may be facilitated by the convenient access of the genetic, proteomic, interactive and other aspects of the therapeutic targets. Here, we describe an update of the Therapeutic target database (TTD) previously featured in NAR. This update includes: (i) 2000 drug resistance mutations in 83 targets and 104 target/drug regulatory genes, which are resistant to 228 drugs targeting 63 diseases (49 targets of 61 drugs with patient prevalence data); (ii) differential expression profiles of 758 targets in the disease-relevant drug-targeted tissue of 12 615 patients of 70 diseases; (iii) expression profiles of 629 targets in the non-targeted tissues of 2565 healthy individuals; (iv) 1008 target combinations of 1764 drugs and the 1604 target combination of 664 multi-target drugs; (v) additional 48 successful, 398 clinical trial and 21 research targets, 473 approved, 812 clinical trial and 1120 experimental drugs, and (vi) ICD-10-CM and ICD-9-CM codes for additional 482 targets and 262 drugs against 98 disease conditions. This update makes TTD more useful for facilitating the patient focused research, discovery and clinical investigations of the targeted therapeutics. TTD is accessible at http://bidd.nus.edu.sg/group/ttd/ttd.asp.

The diversity of metal–organic frameworks enables the design of highly efficient adsorbents and membranes towards hydrocarbon separations for energy consumption mitigation.

Realization of ideal molecular sieves, in which the larger gas molecules are completely blocked without sacrificing high adsorption capacities of the preferred smaller gas molecules, can significantly reduce energy costs for gas separation and purification and thus facilitate a possible technological transformation from the traditional energy-intensive cryogenic distillation to the energy-efficient, adsorbent-based separation and purification in the future. Although extensive research endeavors are pursued to target ideal molecular sieves among diverse porous materials, over the past several decades, ideal molecular sieves for the separation and purification of light hydrocarbons are rarely realized. Herein, an ideal porous material, SIFSIX-14-Cu-i (also termed as UTSA-200), is reported with ultrafine tuning of pore size (3.4 Å) to effectively block ethylene (C H ) molecules but to take up a record-high amount of acetylene (C H , 58 cm cm under 0.01 bar and 298 K). The material therefore sets up new benchmarks for both the adsorption capacity and selectivity, and thus provides a record purification capacity for the removal of trace C H from C H with 1.18 mmol g C H uptake capacity from a 1/99 C H /C H mixture to produce 99.9999% pure C H (much higher than the acceptable purity of 99.996% for polymer-grade C H ), as demonstrated by experimental breakthrough curves.

The efficient capture of SO is of great significance in gas-purification processes including flue-gas desulfurization and natural-gas purification, but the design of porous materials with high adsorption capacity and selectivity of SO remains very challenging. Herein, the selective recognition and dense packing of SO clusters through multiple synergistic host-guest and guest-guest interactions by controlling the pore chemistry and size in inorganic anion (SiF , SIFSIX) pillared metal-organic frameworks is reported. The binding sites of anions and aromatic rings in SIFSIX materials grasp every atom of SO firmly via S ···F electrostatic interactions and O ···H dipole-dipole interactions, while the guest-guest interactions between SO molecules further promote gas trapping within the pore space, which is elucidated by first-principles density functional theory calculations and powder X-ray diffraction experiments. These interactions afford new benchmarks for the highly efficient removal of SO from other gases, even if at a very low SO concentration. Exceptionally high SO capacity of 11.01 mmol g is achieved at atmosphere pressure by SIFSIX-1-Cu, and unprecedented low-pressure SO capacity is obtained in SIFSIX-2-Cu-i (4.16 mmol g SO at 0.01 bar and 2.31 mmol g at 0.002 bar). More importantly, record SO /CO selectivity (86-89) and excellent SO /N selectivity (1285-3145) are also achieved. Experimental breakthrough curves further demonstrate the excellent performance of these hybrid porous materials in removing low-concentration SO .