Purely Physisorption-Based CO-Selective Gate-Opening in Microporous Organically Pillared Layered Silicates.

Separation of gas molecules with similar physical and chemical properties is challenging but nevertheless highly relevant for chemical processing. By introducing the elliptically shaped molecule, 1,4-dimethyl-1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane, into the interlayer space of a layered silicate, a two-dimensional microporous network with narrow pore size distribution is generated (MOPS-5). The regular arrangement of the pillar molecules in MOPS-5 was confirmed by the occurrence of a 10 band related to a long-range pseudo-hexagonal superstructure of pillar molecules in the interlayer space. Whereas with MOPS-5 for CO adsorption, gate-opening occurs at constant volume by freezing pillar rotation, for CO the interlayer space is expanded at gate-opening and a classical interdigitated layer type of gate-opening is observed. The selective nature of the gate-opening might be used for separation of CO and N by pressure swing adsorption.