Efficient purification of ethene by an ethane-trapping metal-organic framework

Separating ethene (C 2 H 4 ) from ethane (C 2 H 6 ) is of paramount importance and difficulty. Here we show that C 2 H 4 can be efficiently purified by trapping the inert C 2 H 6 in a judiciously designed metal-organic framework. Under ambient conditions, passing a typical cracked gas mixture (15:1 C 2 H 4 /C 2 H 6 ) through 1 litre of this C 2 H 6 selective adsorbent directly produces 56 litres of C 2 H 4 with 99.95%+ purity (required by the C...