Separation of high-purity propylene through propane-selective CAU-3 isomorphs

The development of a suitable C3H8-selective adsorbent has been of interest to achieve high energy efficiency. Herein, we report an energy-efficient C3H8-selective CAU-3 BDC and CAU-3-NDC adsorbent. The separation performance was evaluated using a single-component adsorption isotherm, and preferential C3H8 uptake over C3H6 was observed, revealing their C3H8-selective features. To demonstrate the separation ability, a breakthrough experiment was performed on CAU-3-BDC with a 1/15 (v/v) C3H8/C3H6 gas mixture, and the high-purity C3H6 (>99.95%) can be produced during multi-cycle operation. Further, the binding affinity of the C3H8 molecule was determined using computational calculations.