Intramolecular Donor–Acceptor Design in Porous Organic Framework for Liquid Fuels Adsorption Desulfurization

Abstract

A porous organic framework containing well‐defined donor–acceptor units, named donor–acceptor porous organic framework (D–A‐POF), is successfully synthesized. The localized electric field gradient at the pore surface induced by the intramolecular donor–acceptor (D–A) interactions endows D–A‐POF with excellent desulfurization capabilities. D–A‐POF exhibits high adsorption capacity of 3‐methylthiophene (12.26 mmol g−1, 392.32 mg S g−1) and 1‐benzothiophene (793.65 mg g−1, 189.25 mg S g−1) with impressive adsorption selectivity. Density functional theory calculations provide compelling evidence of the preferential selective adsorption of aromatic thiophene sulfides in D–A‐POF. In fixed‐bed breakthrough experiments, D–A‐POF demonstrates its ability to selectively capture thiophene sulfides from model gasoline, resulting in fuel with sulfide content below 10 ppb. The high stability and high desulfurization efficiency of D–A‐POF make it promising as a new porous adsorbent for ultra‐depth adsorption desulfurization.