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Abstractn-butane and isobutane are important petrochemical raw materials. Their separation is challenging because of their similar properties, including boiling point. Here, we report a zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8)/N,N-Dimethylpropyleneurea (DMPU)-water slurry as sorption material to separate butane mixtures. The isobutane/n-butane selectivity of ZIF-8/DMPU-water slurries is as high as 890 with high kinetic performance, which transcends the upper limit of various separation materials or membranes reported in the literature. More encouragingly, a continuous pilot separation device was established, and the test results show that the purity and recovery ratio of isobutane product are 99.46 mol% and 87%, respectively, which are superior to the corresponding performance (98.56 mol% and 54%) of the industrial distillation tower. To the best of our knowledge, the use of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for gas separation in pilot scale remains underexplored, and thus this work provides a step forward to the commercial application of MOFs in gas separation.

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A large amount of COG (coke oven gas) is produced from coking plants every year, which contains 55–60% H2. In this work, the breakthrough separation of H2 from COG with ZIF-8/ethylene glycol-water slurry was studied. Following the investigation of the (ab-ad)sorption isotherms of the single component gas CH4 and H2, the main components of coke oven gas, in different slurries and their corresponding viscosities, and the influence of the operating conditions on the dynamic performance of CH4/H2 separation in slurry were studied in a bubble column. Low temperature, inlet flow rate, high pressure, and solid content can extend the breakthrough time, where the longest breakthrough time interval between H2 and CH4 can be as long as 70 min, meaning the high purity of H2 product could be obtained easily. All the results of this work prove the feasibility of the slurry method to separate CH4/H2 mixture and provide a theoretical basis for practical industrial applications.