Effective Acetylene/Ethylene Separation at Ambient Conditions by a Pigment-Based Covalent-Triazine Framework.

A novel covalent-triazine framework (CTF-PO71) is designed and prepared from an organic pigment molecule for high-performance gas separation. The functional sites with different electrostatic potentials on the pore surface of CTF-PO71 demonstrate a strong interaction between C2 H2 and CTF-PO71 to achieve preferential adsorption of C2 H2 over C2 H4 , thus enabling effective capture of a trace amount of C2 H2 from the gas mixture. This is the first organic porous polymer that is capable of separating C2 H2 and C2 H4 . The commercial availability and the low cost of the pigment as well as the high stability of the resultant framework endow CTF-PO71 with a significant potential for practical applications.