Separation of C2 hydrocarbons from methane in a microporous metal-organic framework

The recovery of C2 hydrocarbons including acetylene, ethylene and ethane is challenging but important for natural gas upgrading. The separation of C2 hydrocarbons over methane was demonstrated here by using a microporous metal-organic framework [Zn 3 (OH) 2 (SDB) 2 ] (H 2 SDB = 4,4'-sulfonyldibenzoic acid) consisting narrow one-dimensional pore channels. Gas sorption experiments revealed that this MOF material showed considerable uptake capacity for C 2 H 2 , C 2 H 4 and C 2 H 6 under ambient conditions, while its capacity for CH 4 was very low. High selectivity from IAST calculations for C 2 H 2 /CH 4 , C 2 H 4 /CH 4 and C 2 H 6 /CH 4 binary mixtures demonstrated that this MOF material were promising for efficiently separating important separation of C2 hydrocarbons from methane in natural gas processing.