Amino-Functionalised Hybrid Ultramicroporous Materials that Enable Single-Step Ethylene Purification from a Ternary Mixture

Pyrazine-linked hybrid ultramicroporous (pore size <7 Å) materials (HUMs) offer benchmark performance for trace carbon capture thanks to strong selectivity for CO₂ over small gas molecules, including light hydrocarbons. That the prototypal pyrazine-linked HUMs are amenable to crystal engineering has enabled second generation HUMs to supersede the performance of the parent HUM, SIFSIX-3-Zn, mainly through substitution of the metal and/or the inorganic pillar. Herein, we report that two isostructural aminopyrazine-linked HUMs, MFSIX-17-Ni (17=aminopyrazine; M=Si, Ti), which we had anticipated would offer even stronger affinity for CO₂ than their pyrazine analogs, unexpectedly exhibit reduced CO₂ affinity but enhanced C₂H₂ affinity. MFSIX-17-Ni are consequently the first physisorbents that enable single-step production of polymer-grade ethylene (>99.95 % for SIFSIX-17-Ni) from a ternary equimolar mixture of ethylene, acetylene and CO₂ thanks to coadsorption of the latter two gases. We attribute this performance to the very different binding sites in MFSIX-17-Ni versus SIFSIX-3-Zn.