Methane and carbon dioxide storage in a porous van der Waals crystal

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Methane and carbon dioxide storage in a porous van der Waals crystal

Sozzani, P. / Bracco, S. / Comotti, A. / Ferretti, L. / Simonutti, R.

The absorption properties of materials are emerging as a forefront issue of present-day research boosted by strategic industrial and environmental applications. Demonstrated is the remarkable sorption properties of molecular crystals of tris-o-phenylenedioxycyclotriphosphazene (TPP) with respect to important gases that participate in a network of soft interactions. In fact, methane and carbon dioxide, key gases in the global economy, could be incorporated with high efficiency in the novel adducts (60 % and 100 % occupation, respectively, of the available sites, guest-host molar fraction of up to 1.25) with neat selectivity over other gases. The molecular crystal wich exhibits permanent nanoporosity, can store large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane selectively over nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, suggesting intriguing applications for fuel storage, hydrogen purification, and carbon dioxide removal from the air. The gases were bound by the soft molecular lattice to fabricate new gas-solid adducts. This represents a still rare case of gas sorption, as until recently, molecular systems were neglected relative to metal-organic or traditional zeolites. Unprecedented observations of the gases in van der Waals crystals and their topology could be provided by fast MAS NMR spectroscopy.