Porous MOF Featuring 2D Intersecting Channels Based on a Pentanuclear Mn5(COO)10CO3 Cluster with Upgrading of Pipeline Natural Gas.

Natural gas plays a crucial role in daily and industrial production, but the impurities contained in natural gas limit its further use. It is very important to develop adsorbents that can separate CH4 from multicomponent mixtures, but there are still many challenges and problems. Herein, a novel porous MOF {[Mn5(pbdia)2(CO3)(H2O)2] ↔ 5H2O ↔ 2DMF}n (pbdia = 2,2'-(5-carboxy-1,3-phenylene)bis(oxy) diterephthalic acid) was successfully synthesized based on a flexible pentacarboxylic acid ligand and a unique pentanuclear Mn5(COO)10CO3 cluster. The MOF reveals a 3D porous structure with 2D intersecting channels, which shows high C3H8, C2H6, and CO2 adsorption capacities and affinities over CH4. Moreover, the ideal adsorption solution theory selectivities of C3H8/CH4, C2H6/CH4, and CO2/CH4 can reach 263.0, 27.0, and 7.7, respectively, suggesting a potential for removing the low content of C3H8, C2H6, and CO2 from pipeline natural gas, which was further confirmed by breakthrough curves and GCMC simulations.

Ultramicroporous Metal-Organic Framework with Inert Pore Surfaces for Inversed Separation of Ethylene from C2 Hydrocarbons Mixtures.

The achievement of direct C2H4 separation from C2 hydrocarbons is very challenging in the petrochemical industry due to their similar molecular sizes, boiling points, and physicochemical properties. In this work, a nonpolar/inert ultramicroporous metal-organic framework (MOF), [Co3(µ3-OH)(tipa)(bpy)1.5]·3DMF·6H2O (1), with stand-alone one-dimensional square tubular channels was successfully constructed, its pore enriched with plenty of aromatic rings causing nonpolar/inert pore surfaces. The MOF shows preferential adsorption of C2H6 compared to C2H4 and C2H2 in the low-pressure region, which is further verified by adsorption heats and selectivities. The C2H4 separation potential in one step for binary C2H6/C2H4 (50/50 and 10/90) and ternary C2H4/C2H6/C2H2 (89/10/1) is also examined by transient breakthrough simulations. Moreover, grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the unique reversed adsorption mechanism is due to the shortest and most number of C-H···π interactions between C2H6 and the framework.

Discriminatory Gate-Opening Effect in a Flexible Metal-Organic Framework for Inverse CO2 /C2 H2 Separation.

Considering the significant application of acetylene (C2 H2 ) in the manufacturing and petrochemical industries, the selective capture of impurity carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is a crucial task and an enduring challenge. Here, a flexible metal-organic framework (Zn-DPNA) accompanied by a conformation change of the Me2 NH2 + ions in the framework is reported. The solvate-free framework provides a stepped adsorption isotherm and large hysteresis for C2 H2 , but type-I adsorption for CO2 . Owing to their uptakes difference before gate-opening pressure, Zn-DPNA demonstrated favorable inverse CO2 /C2 H2 separation. According to molecular simulation, the higher adsorption enthalpy of CO2 (43.1 kJ mol-1 ) is due to strong electrostatic interactions with Me2 NH2 + ions, which lock the hydrogen-bond network and narrow pores. Furthermore, the density contours and electrostatic potential verifies the middle of the cage in the large pore favors C2 H2 and repels CO2 , leading to the expansion of the narrow pore and further diffusion of C2 H2 . These results provide a new strategy that optimizes the desired dynamic behavior for one-step purification of C2 H2 .

Engineering a Series of Isoreticular Pillared Layer Ultramicroporous MOFs for Gas and Vapor Uptake.

The accurate design and systematic engineering of MOFs is a large challenge due to the randomness of the synthesis process. Isoreticular chemistry provides a powerful approach for the regulation of pore environment in a more predictable and precise way to systematically control gas/vapor adsorption performances. Herein, utilizing an effective strategy of altering the "pillared" motifs of pillared layer structures, three isoreticular ultramicroporous MOFs were successfully constructed. Combined with the reported parent MOFs and two other recorded isoreticular MOFs modified with -NH2 and -CH3, gas and vapor uptake performances of this family of isoreticular pillared layer MOFs were systematically explored.

C2H2 capture and separation in a MOF based on Ni6 trigonal-prismatic units.

A honeycomb MOF, based on rare Ni6 trigonal-prismatic supermolecular building blocks, was fabricated by utilizing an unexploited [1,1'-biphenyl]-3,3',5,5'-tetracarboxylic acid linker with -NH2 substituent groups. The MOF contains novel building blocks and an enchanting structure, and also exhibits water-stable characteristics. Uniquely, the accessible adsorption sites, arising due to the high-density Lewis-basic amino-coordinated groups and uncoordinated carboxylate O atoms in the pores, endow the MOF with excellent capture and separation capabilities for C2H2.

Chromatin 3D structure reconstruction with consideration of adjacency relationship among genomic loci.

BACKGROUND: Chromatin 3D conformation plays important roles in regulating gene or protein functions. High-throughout chromosome conformation capture (3C)-based technologies, such as Hi-C, have been exploited to acquire the contact frequencies among genomic loci at genome-scale. Various computational tools have been proposed to recover the underlying chromatin 3D structures from in situ Hi-C contact map data. As connected residuals in a polymer, neighboring genomic loci have intrinsic mutual dependencies in building a 3D conformation. However, current methods seldom take this feature into account. RESULTS: We present a method called ShNeigh, which combines the classical MDS technique with local dependence of neighboring loci modeled by a Gaussian formula, to infer the best 3D structure from noisy and incomplete contact frequency matrices. We validated ShNeigh by comparing it to two typical distance-based algorithms, ShRec3D and ChromSDE. The comparison results on simulated Hi-C dataset showed that, while keeping the high-speed nature of classical MDS, ShNeigh can recover the true structure better than ShRec3D and ChromSDE. Meanwhile, ShNeigh is more robust to data noise. On the publicly available human GM06990 Hi-C data, we demonstrated that the structures reconstructed by ShNeigh are more reproducible between different restriction enzymes than by ShRec3D and ChromSDE, especially at high resolutions manifested by sparse contact maps, which means ShNeigh is more robust to signal coverage. CONCLUSIONS: Our method can recover stable structures in high noise and sparse signal settings. It can also reconstruct similar structures from Hi-C data obtained using different restriction enzymes. Therefore, our method provides a new direction for enhancing the reconstruction quality of chromatin 3D structures.

Luminescent and Magnetic Properties of Coordination Polymers Induced by Coordinating Modes of a Bis(oxamate) Ligand.

The reactions of an unexploited N,N'-5-carboxyl-1,3-phenylenebis(ethyl oxamate) (HEt2 L) ligand with different Mn2+ and Cd2+ salts under solvothermal conditions afforded four three-dimensional (3D) coordination polymers (CPs): [Mn1.5 L(H2 O)2 ]⋅H2 O (1) [Mn2 L(C2 O4 )0.5 (NMP)(H2 O)] ⋅ NMP (2), [Cd1.5 L(H2 O)2.5 ] ⋅ H2 O (3) and [Cd2 L(C2 O4 )0.5 (H2 O)3 ] ⋅ H2 O (4) (NMP=N-methyl pyrrolidone). L, generated by the in-situ hydrolysis of HEt2 L, displays four kinds of coordinating modes through oxamate and carboxylate groups as well as different syn-syn and syn-trans configurations. The resulting novel (3,4,5)-, (3,4,6)-, (4,5)- and (4,4,4,5)-connected topologies for 1-4 were formed. Among them, 1 has interesting 1D metal-oxamate zigzag chains, 2 contains 1D channels with a free void of 52.5 %, 3 consists of an unprecedented Cd-oxamate layer, 4 has a novel Cd-oxamate-oxalate chain. The antiferromagnetic interactions of 1 and 2 were observed, meanwhile 3 and 4 exhibit solid-state luminescence with the maximum emission bands at 483 and 479 nm, respectively, under an excitation of 332 nm.

Direct Evidence: Enhanced C2H6 and C2H4 Adsorption and Separation Performances by Introducing Open Nitrogen-Donor Sites in a MOF.

To comparably analyze the influence of a porous environment on the gas adsorption in MOFs, based on an imidazole-decorated MOF, {[Zn(imtp)]·DMA·1.5H2O} n (1-im, H2imtp = 2-(imidazol-1-yl) terephthalic acid), an analogue MOF, {[Zn(tztp)]·DMA} n (1-tz, H2tztp = 2-(1 H-1,2,4-triazol-1-yl) terephthalic acid) has been synthesized by replacing imidazole with triazole motifs. The two MOFs are isostructural frameworks containing 1D channels; however, they possess different porous wall environments. The open nitrogen-decorated channels in 1-tz lead to significantly enhanced C2H6 (76.5 cm3 g-1) and C2H4 (73.1 cm3 g-1) uptakes at 298 K and 1 atm, which are 5 times of the adsorption amounts of C2H6 and C2H4 in 1-im that is the absence of exposed N atoms in the channels. Furthermore, the activated 1-tz also reveals higher adsorption selectivities for C2H6 and C2H4 over CH4. The different sorption properties were further uncovered by theoretical simulations.

Honeycomb Metal-Organic Framework with Lewis Acidic and Basic Bifunctional Sites: Selective Adsorption and CO2 Catalytic Fixation.

Carrying out the strategy of incorporating rod secondary building units and polar functional groups in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to accomplish the separation of CO2 and C2 hydrocarbons over CH4 as well as CO2 fixation, an oxalamide-functionalized ligand N, N'-bis(isophthalic acid)-oxalamide (H4BDPO) has been designed. The solvothermal reaction of H4BDPO with the oxophilic alkaline-earth Ba2+ ion afforded a honeycomb Ba-MOF, {[Ba2(BDPO)(H2O)]·DMA} n (1). Due to the existence of Lewis basic oxalamide groups and unsaturated Lewis acid metal sites in the tubular channels, the activated framework presents not only high C2H6, C2H4, and CO2 uptakes and selective capture from CH4, but also efficient CO2 chemical fixation as a recyclable heterogeneous catalyst. Grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations were combined to explore the adsorption selectivities for C2H6-CH4 and C2H4-CH4 mixtures as well as the interaction mechanisms between the framework and epoxides.

Efficient light hydrocarbon separation and CO2 capture and conversion in a stable MOF with oxalamide-decorated polar tubes.

The first strontium-based MOF possessing polar tubular channels embedded with a high density of open Lewis acidic metal sites and basic oxalamide groups was constructed, which shows not only a high CO2 and C2H6 adsorption capability and significant selectivity for CO2 over both CH4 and CO, and for C2H6 over CH4, but also size-selective chemical conversion of CO2 with epoxides producing cyclic carbonates under ambient conditions.