A porous metal-organic framework with ultrahigh acetylene uptake capacity under ambient conditions

Abstract

Acetylene, an important petrochemical raw material, is very difficult to store safely under compression because of its highly explosive nature. Here we present a porous metal-organic framework named FJI-H8, with both suitable pore space and rich open metal sites, for efficient storage of acetylene under ambient conditions. Compared with existing reports, FJI-H8 shows a record-high gravimetric acetylene uptake of 224 cm3 (STP) g-1 and the second-highest volumetric uptake of 196 cm3 (STP) cm-3 at 295 K and 1 atm. Increasing the storage temperature to 308 K has only a small effect on its acetylene storage capacity (∼ 200 cm3 (STP) g-1). Furthermore, FJI-H8 exhibits an excellent repeatability with only 3.8% loss of its acetylene storage capacity after five cycles of adsorption-desorption tests. Grand canonical Monte Carlo simulation reveals that not only open metal sites but also the suitable pore space and geometry play key roles in its remarkable acetylene uptake.