Angewandte
Chemie
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201410077
Porous Materials
A Rod-Packing Microporous Hydrogen-Bonded Organic Framework
for Highly Selective Separation of C2H2/CO2 at Room Temperature**
Peng Li, Yabing He, Yunfeng Zhao, Linhong Weng, Hailong Wang, Rajamani Krishna, Hui Wu,
Wei Zhou, Michael OꢀKeeffe, Yu Han, and Banglin Chen*
Abstract: Self-assembly of a trigonal building subunit with
diaminotriazines (DAT) functional groups leads to a unique
rod-packing 3D microporous hydrogen-bonded organic
framework (HOF-3). This material shows permanent porosity
and demonstrates highly selective separation of C2H2/CO2 at
ambient temperature and pressure.
cation, and straightforward regeneration and reusage by
simple recrystallization. Because the pore surfaces within
HOFs are apparently different from those within MOFs and
zeolites, exploration of HOF materials might lead to some
unique new adsorbents for gas separations.
Herein we report a new system, HOF-3, constructed from
a new triangular organic linker containing three hydrogen-
bonding motifs of 2,4-diaminotriazinyl (DAT) (Figure 1a).
Unlike those reported HOFs whose porous structures were
built from discrete building units; HOF-3, to the best of our
knowledge, is the first example of HOFs constructed from
one-dimensional rod-packing units exhibiting the srs top-
ology. More importantly, the activated HOF-3a shows
superior selectivity for C2H2/CO2 separation to the estab-
lished MOF materials.
The triangular organic building block 3-DAT, shown in
Figure 1a, can be readily synthesized in 84% yield by the
reaction of the corresponding nitrile with dicyandiamide
(Supporting Information, Scheme S1). The colorless block
crystals of HOF-3 suitable for X-ray diffraction analysis were
grown by slow vapor diffusion of THF into a large vial
containing saturated DMSO solution of this building block
for a week under room temperature. The purity of HOF-3 was
confirmed by 1H NMR and 13C NMR spectroscopy, thermog-
ravimetric analysis (TGA), and powder X-ray diffraction
(PXRD; Supporting Information, Figures S1–S3). The inclu-
sion of the solvent molecules into the framework leads to the
HOF-3 whose phase is different from that of the as-
synthesized 3-DAT. TGA curve indicates that the framework
of HOF-3 can be stable up to 3508C.
D
evelopment of new porous adsorbents is a very important
topic for adsorption-based gas separations. For example,
extensive research on porous metal–organic frameworks
(MOFs) has not only led to a number of new MOFadsorbents
whose separation selectivities and capacities have surpassed
those traditional zeolite materials for some important CO2/
N2, CO2/CH4, CO2/H2, and xylene isomer separations,[1,2] but
also generated a few MOFs to target the very challenging
C2H2/C2H4,[3] C2H4/C2H6, C3H6 and C3H8,[4,5] and CO/N2
separations.[6]
Among diverse gas separations, C2H2/CO2 is another very
challenging mixture. This is because these two gas molecules
have very similar shapes, dimensions (332 ꢀ 334 ꢀ 570 pm
versus 318.9 ꢀ 333.9 ꢀ 536.1 pm), and boiling points (À848C
versus À78.58C).[7] Since the discovery of the first MOF
material for this separation,[8] several MOFs have been
realized for this important gas separation, though the
selectivities are quite low.[9]
Recently we, and several other groups, have realized that
it is feasible to make use of hydrogen bonding interactions to
construct new porous materials which we have termed as
hydrogen bonded organic frameworks (HOFs),[10] providing
the new approach to develop and explore new porous
adsorbents for gas separations. In fact, the first, HOF-1,
exhibits superior C2H2/C2H4 separation to other MOFs.[10h]
Compared with MOFs, HOFs have some advantages includ-
ing solution processability and characterization, easy purifi-
Single-crystal X-ray diffraction reveals that HOF-3 crys-
tallized in the rhombohedral space group R3 and HOF-3 is
a three-dimensional rod-packing porous material with one-
dimensional hexagonal channels of about 7.0 ꢁ in diameter
[*] P. Li,[+] Dr. Y. He,[+] Dr. H. Wang, Prof. Dr. B. Chen
Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at San Antonio
One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249-0698 (USA)
E-mail: banglin.chen@utsa.edu
Prof. Dr. H. Wu, Prof. Dr. W. Zhou
NIST Center for Neutron Research
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-6102 (USA)
and
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (USA)
Prof. Dr. L. Weng
Department of Chemistry, Fudan University
220 Handan Rd, Shanghai 200433 (China)
Dr. Y. Zhao, Prof. Dr. Y. Han
Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Center
Physical Sciences and Engineering Division
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Thuwal 23955-6900 (Saudi Arabia)
Prof. Dr. R. Krishna
Van’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences
University of Amsterdam
Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
[+] These authors contributed equally to this work.
Prof. Dr. M. O’Keeffe
[**] This work was supported by the Welch Foundation (A-1730).
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Arizona State University (USA)
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 1 – 5
ꢀ 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
1
These are not the final page numbers!