Construction of saturated coordination titanium-based metal–organic framework for one-step C2H2/C2H6/C2H4 separation

• Construction saturated coordination Ti-MOF for alkanes-selective adsorption. • C 2 H 6 and C 2 H 2 can be selective adsorbed simultaneously on the adsorbents. • One-step separate C 2 H 4 from ternary C 2 H 6 /C 2 H 2 /C 2 H 4 mixture. • The synthesized Ti-MOFs show good structural stability for C 2 H 4 purification. The slight differences between ternary components of C 2 hydrocarbons make the separation of C 2 H 2 /C 2 H 6 /C 2 H 4 mixtures one of the most challenging tasks in the petrochemical industry. In this study, a family of saturated coordination titanium-based metal–organic frameworks with high stability is constructed for one-step C 2 H 4 purification. Single component adsorption measurements along with dynamic breakthrough experiments illustrated that these MOFs clearly exhibited large adsorption for C 2 H 2 and C 2 H 6 compared to C 2 H 4 , and could efficiently extract low concentrations of C 2 H 6 and C 2 H 2 from ternary C 2 H 2 /C 2 H 6 /C 2 H 4 mixtures simultaneously. Grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations revealed the stronger affinity of the MOFs toward C 2 H 6 and C 2 H 2 compared to C 2 H 4 . Furthermore, the mostly intact structure of these MOFs after various examinations revealed their distinctive stability. The reasonably high C 2 H 6 and C 2 H 2 adsorption capacity, ultrahigh structural stability, and excellent separation performance rendered these materials good candidates for C 2 H 4 purification from C 2 H 2 /C 2 H 6 /C 2 H 4 mixtures in industry.