(667g) Selective Removal of Trace Propyne from Propylene Using Ion-Containing Materials

Tian Ke,¹ Jin Shen,¹ Xin He,² Qingju Wang,¹ Zongbi Bao,¹ Zhiguo Zhang,¹ Huabin Xing,¹ Qiwei Yang,^1* Qilong Ren¹

¹College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.

²Department of Chemistry，Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

E-mail: yangqw@zju.edu.cn

Selective removal of trace propyne from propylene remains one of the most challenging processes in petrochemical industry. Herein we report several new room temperature molten salts and ion-containing porous solid materials as alternative absorbents/adsorbents for propyne/propylene separation. The Henry's constants of propyne and propylene and separation selectivity were measured for the room temperature molten salts, and both showed superiority to those of reference absorbents. The absorption-desorption cycles could be easily achieved by evaporation at moderate temperature because of the ultralow volatility of molten salts. For the ion-containing porous solid materials, through the optimization of pore chemistry and size, both the single-component adsorption isotherms and the breakthrough experiments showed high adsorption capacity of trace propyne along with excellent propyne/propylene selectivity. Meanwhile, cycling tests showed that the separation performance could remain unchanged for several cycles even for water-containing propyne/propylene mixtures. Density functional theory calculations were performed to simulate the host-guest interactions in both room temperature molten salts and porous solid materials, and the hydrogen bonds between anion and propyne showed a key role in the selective removal of trace propyne from propylene using these ion-containing materials.

Acknowledgement: This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21725603), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. LZ18B060001), and the National Program for support of Top-notch Yong Professionals (H. X.)

References:

1. L. F. Yang, X. L. Cui, Z. Q. Zhang, Q. W. Yang, Z. B. Bao, Q. L. Ren, and H. B. Xing*. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 57, 13145 –13149.
2. L. F. Yang, X. L. Cui, Q. W. Yang, S. H. Qian, H. Wu, Z. B. Bao, Z. G. Zhang, Q. L. Ren, W. Zhou, B. L. Chen, and H. B. Xing*. Adv. Mater. 2018, 30, 1705374.