Tae Ung Yoon

Selective nitrogen capture by porous hybrid materials containing accessible transition metal ion sites

Selective dinitrogen binding to transition metal ions mainly covers two strategic domains: biological nitrogen fixation catalysed by metalloenzyme nitrogenases, and adsorptive purification of natural gas and air. Many transition metal-dinitrogen complexes have been envisaged for biomimetic nitrogen fixation to produce ammonia. Inspired by this concept, here we report mesoporous metal-organic framework materials containing accessible Cr(III) sites, able to thermodynamically capture N2 over CH4 and O2. This fundamental study integrating advanced experimental and computational tools confirmed that the separation mechanism for both N2/CH4 and N2/O2 gas mixtures is driven by the presence of these unsaturated Cr(III) sites that allows a much stronger binding of N2 over the two other gases. Besides the potential breakthrough in adsorption-based technologies, this proof of concept could open new horizons to address several challenges in chemistry, including the design of heterogeneous biomimetic catalysts through nitrogen fixation.

Adsorptive separation of xenon/krypton mixtures using a zirconium-based metal-organic framework with high hydrothermal and radioactive stabilities

The separation of xenon/krypton mixtures is important for both environmental and industrial purposes. The potential of three hydrothermally stable MOFs (MIL-100(Fe), MIL-101(Cr), and UiO-66(Zr)) for use in Xe/Kr separation has been experimentally investigated. From the observed single-component Xe and Kr isotherms, isosteric heat of adsorption (Qsto), and IAST-predicted Xe/Kr selectivities, we observed that UiO-66(Zr) has the most potential as an adsorbent among the three candidate MOFs. We performed dynamic breakthrough experiments with an adsorption bed filled with UiO-66(Zr) to evaluate further the potential of UiO-66(Zr) for Xe/Kr separation under mixture flow conditions. Remarkably, the experimental breakthrough curves show that UiO-66(Zr) can efficiently separate the Xe/Kr mixture. Furthermore, UiO-66(Zr) maintains most of its Xe and Kr uptake capacity, as well as its crystallinity and internal surface area, even after exposure to gamma radiation (2kGy) for 7h and aging for 16 months under ambient conditions. This result indicates that UiO-66(Zr) can be considered to be a potential adsorbent for Xe/Kr mixtures under both ambient and radioactive conditions.

High-temperature in situ crystallographic observation of reversible gas sorption in impermeable organic cages

Significance Crystallographic observation of adsorbed gas molecules at high temperatures is a highly challenging task due to their rapid motion. We provide evidence of restrained motions in a self-assembled organic crystal with small isolated cages, inside which the confined CO2 molecules can be identified with in situ X-ray diffraction technique at the high temperature. Although the crystal is nonporous, the CO2 molecules can permeate into the crystal because of thermally activated transient pathways between the cages. We show that the flexible nature of the transient pathways leads to the temperature-driven reversible CO2 sorption, understanding of which can contribute to the design of a system with controlled capture/release of gas molecules. Crystallographic observation of adsorbed gas molecules is a highly difficult task due to their rapid motion. Here, we report the in situ single-crystal and synchrotron powder X-ray observations of reversible CO2 sorption processes in an apparently nonporous organic crystal under varying pressures at high temperatures. The host material is formed by hydrogen bond network between 1,3,5-tris-(4-carboxyphenyl)benzene (H3BTB) and N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and by π–π stacking between the H3BTB moieties. The material can be viewed as a well-ordered array of cages, which are tight packed with each other so that the cages are inaccessible from outside. Thus, the host is practically nonporous. Despite the absence of permanent pathways connecting the empty cages, they are permeable to CO2 at high temperatures due to thermally activated molecular gating, and the weakly confined CO2 molecules in the cages allow direct detection by in situ single-crystal X-ray diffraction at 323 K. Variable-temperature in situ synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction studies also show that the CO2 sorption is reversible and driven by temperature increase. Solid-state magic angle spinning NMR defines the interactions of CO2 with the organic framework and dynamic motion of CO2 in cages. The reversible sorption is attributed to the dynamic motion of the DMF molecules combined with the axial motions/angular fluctuations of CO2 (a series of transient opening/closing of compartments enabling CO2 molecule passage), as revealed from NMR and simulations. This temperature-driven transient molecular gating can store gaseous molecules in ordered arrays toward unique collective properties and release them for ready use.

Beyond pristine MOFs: carbon dioxide capture by metal–organic frameworks (MOFs)-derived porous carbon materials

Porous carbon materials were synthesized by simple pyrolysis of various zinc-containing MOFs. These materials exhibited superior CO2 capacities compared to those of the pristine MOFs. Moreover, the porous carbon materials, in contrast to their parent MOFs, showed an excellent CO2 separation ability under humid conditions.

Highly selective adsorption of CO over CO2 in a Cu(I)-chelated porous organic polymer

Cu(I) species were successfully chelated to nitrogen atoms in a nitrogen-rich porous organic polymer (SNW-1) by mixing with a CuCl solution (Scheme 1). Although pristine SNW-1 adsorbs CO2 better than CO, Cu(I)-incorporated SNW-1 (nCu(I)@SNW-1) shows selective CO adsorption over CO2 because of the π-complexation of CO with Cu(I). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first CO/CO2 selectivity observed for POP-based materials. 1.3Cu(I)@SNW-1 exhibits high CO/CO2 selectivity (23) at 1bar and a large CO working capacity (0.6mmol/g) at 0.1-1bar. Moreover, the breakthrough and thermogravimetric experiments show that 1.3Cu(I)@SNW-1 can effectively separate CO from CO2 under dynamic mixture conditions and can be easily regenerated under mild regeneration conditions without heating the column. Furthermore, 1.3Cu(I)@SNW-1 exhibited a good stability under exposure to atmospheric air for 3h or 9h. These results suggest that chelating Cu(I) species to a nitrogen-rich porous organic polymer can be an efficient strategy to separate and recover CO from CO/CO2 mixtures.

A novel 3-D microporous magnesium-based metal–organic framework with open metal sites

A novel 3-dimensional (3-D) Mg(II) metal–organic framework (MOF) [Mg4(bdc)4(DEF)4]n (1) was synthesized by the solvothermal reaction of 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid (H2bdc) and magnesium nitrate hexahydrate in N,N′-diethylformamide (DEF). Single-crystal structural analyses reveal that the bdc dianion connects two dinuclear units to form a tetranuclear unit. The dinuclear units consist of a Mg(II) ion that is tetra-coordinated to four bridging oxygen atoms and a Mg(II) ion that is hexa-coordinated to four bridging oxygen atoms, and two pendant DEF molecules. These special arrangements result in novel zig-zag patterned 1-D rhombic channels containing coordinated DEF molecules. Heating 1 to 400 °C provides a porous DEF-free MOF (3), as confirmed by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), elemental analysis, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and BET surface area. Remarkably, removing the coordinated DEF molecules from 1 while retaining the porosity might lead to the formation of open metal sites, which are favorable for the adsorption of various gas molecules. Adsorption experiments and ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) calculations show that 3 has much larger H2 and CO2 uptakes and a higher CO2/N2 selectivity than a sample activated at 300 °C (2), which still contains coordinated DEF molecules.

Power partial-discard strategy to obtain improved performance for simulated moving bed chromatography

A novel power partial-discard (PPD) strategy was developed as a variant of the partial-discard (PD) operation to further improve the separation performance of the simulated moving bed (SMB) process. The PPD operation varied the flow rates of discard streams by introducing a new variable, the discard amount (DA) as well as varying the reported variable, discard length (DL), while the conventional PD used fixed discard flow rates. The PPD operations showed significantly improved purities in spite of losses in recoveries. Remarkably, the PPD operation could provide more enhanced purity for a given recovery or more enhanced recovery for a given purity than the PD operation. The two variables, DA and DL, in the PPD operation played a key role in achieving the desired purity and recovery. The PPD operations will be useful for attaining high-purity products with reasonable recoveries.