Stepwise Engineering the Pore Aperture of a Cage-like MOF for the Efficient Separation of Isomeric C4 Paraffins under Humid Conditions.

The separation of isomeric C4 paraffins is an important task in the petrochemical industry, while current adsorbents undergo a trade-off relationship between selectivity and adsorption capacity. In this work, the pore aperture of a cage-like Zn-bzc (bzc=pyrazole-4-carboxylic acid) is tuned by the stepwise installation methyl groups on its narrow aperture to achieve both molecular-sieving separation and high n-C H uptake. Notably, the resulting Zn-bzc-2CH (bzc-2CH =3,5-dimethylpyrazole-4-carboxylic acid) can sensitively capture n-C H and exclude iso-C H , affording molecular-sieving for n-C H /iso-C H separation and high n-C H adsorption capacity (54.

Simultaneous introduction of oxygen vacancies and hierarchical pores into titanium-based metal-organic framework for enhanced photocatalytic performance.

Photo-generated radicals play an important role in photocatalytic reactions, yet numerous radicals undergo self-quenching before contact with the substrate because of their ultrafast lifetimes and limited diffusion distances, which decreases the utilization of free radicals and reduces the activity of photocatalysts. Herein, both hierarchical pores and oxygen vacancies (OVs) were successfully introduced into a titanium-based metal-organic framework (MOF), namely MIL-125-NH (MIL for Materials of Institut Lavoisier), via a simple and controllable acid etching method. The generation of OVs increased the yield of photogenerated radicals, while the hierarchical pore structure conferred a pore enrichment effect, thus enhancing the utilization of photogenerated radicals.