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Two flexible cationic metal-organic frameworks with remarkable stability for CO2/CH4 separation

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Abstract

Cationic azole-based metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with remarkable stability and unique pore environment have aroused great research interests. Meanwhile, flexible MOFs which can undergo pore-structure changes upon exposure to external stimuli are ideal materials for gas separation. However, introducing flexibility into the framework of cationic azole-based MOFs is rarely reported. Herein, we synthesized two stable isomorphic cationic MOFs (M-btz-as, M = Co, Ni) based on a linear azole ligand. After activated at high temperature under vacuum, M-btz-ht (M = Co, Ni) were obtained and both MOFs exhibited flexible features in which Co-btz is more flexible than Ni-btz. Different solvent-mediated activation methods were employed to explore their effects on structural flexibility and produced MOFs with different phases. Continuous phase transformation of Co-btz-e was verified by powder X-ray diffraction. In addition, these MOF phases possessed different gas separation abilities affected by their flexible frameworks, and Co-btz-ht exhibited the highest CO2/CH4 separation ability.

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Acknowledgements

The authors from NENU thank the financial supports from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2412019FZ008), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21871105, 21503038 and 21531003) and the “111” project (No. B18012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Polyoxometalate Science of Ministry of Education, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China

    Shulin Li, Shilin Zeng, Yuyang Tian, Xiaofei Jing & Guangshan Zhu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, China

    Fuxing Sun

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  1. Shulin Li
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  2. Shilin Zeng
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  3. Yuyang Tian
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  4. Xiaofei Jing
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Correspondence to Xiaofei Jing or Fuxing Sun.

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Li, S., Zeng, S., Tian, Y. et al. Two flexible cationic metal-organic frameworks with remarkable stability for CO2/CH4 separation. Nano Res. 14, 3288–3293 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3329-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3329-8

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