Issue 15/2018 - New porous materials are expected to replace activated carbon

Recently, the research project of new hybrid metal-organic framework material design and its electronic structure and structure-activity relationship undertaken by Chen Liang's research group of Ningbo Institute of Materials of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made a major breakthrough, and the new metal-organic framework material developed is expected to replace the traditional activated carbon material
in the fields of gas adsorption and separation.

Compared with activated carbon materials, the material has a higher specific surface area and adjustable pore size structure, and has good application prospects
in the fields of gas adsorption, storage, separation, catalysis and sensing.
After the transition metal doping modification of the metal site of the material, the research group synthesized it with silicone for the first time in the world, which has more application prospects
than granular porous adsorption materials.
For example, in the shale gas purification process, hybrid membranes can take advantage of the different diameters of carbon dioxide and methane molecules to separate
them.
More importantly, the thickness of the hybrid film prepared by metal-organic framework materials and silicones is very "thin", only 50~150 nm, which ensures good gas permeability and high efficiency, compared with traditional gas separation technologies such as pressure swing adsorption, which greatly saves energy consumption and reduces process complexity
.