Shaping of gallate-based metal-organic frameworks for adsorption separation of ethylene from acetylene and ethane.

Shaping metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) powders into formed bodies plays a crucial role in opening up the excellent properties of MOFs to a broad range of applications. Gallate-based MOFs, termed as M-gallate (M = Co, Mg, Ni), have shown excellent performance for adsorption separation of C hydrocarbons. However, the industrial applications of MOF powders will inevitably confront problems of high pressure drop, pipe blockage, and dust pollution. Herein, we use hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) as a binder to produce gallate-based MOFs pellets. The crystal structure of the well-shaped materials after molding remained intact, and the surface area of the materials hardly decreases after shaping. Adsorption isotherms of C hydrocarbons including ethylene, ethane and acetylene on the activated powders and pellets of M-gallate were recorded and compared with the outperformers. The shaped pellets were also examined by breakthrough experiments on the fixed-bed separation of CH/CH (1:99, v/v) and CH/CH (50:50, v/v) gas mixtures. These results proved that M-gallate pellets was promising candidates for the practical industrial realization of C hydrocarbons separation.