Mathew Luebbers, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Illinois, 600 S. Mathews St., Urbana, IL 61801, Adarsh Radadia, Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 600 South Mathews, 294 Roger Adams Laboratory, 42-6 CLSL, MC 712, Urbana, IL 61820, Tianjiao Wu, Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 600 S. Mathews St., Urbana, IL 61801, and Richard Masel, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 294 RAL, MC-712, 600 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana, IL 61801.
For industrial applications as well as microdevices such as gas analyzers, there is a need for adsorbents with improved separation efficiencies. The work reported here regards the usage of Zn-based metal-organic framework (MOF) materials for the separation of hydrocarbon mixtures. An example of such a separation with these materials is the chromatographic separation of hexane isomers. The highly ordered nature of MOF materials as well as the ability to tailor the framework's chemical functionality by modifying the organic linker ligands gives the materials great opportunities as high efficiency adsorbents. X-ray diffraction and gas sorption studies of the MOF materials such as isotherms, breakthrough studies, and thermogravimetric analysis will be used to study the material properties and explore the feasibility of separations.