ja9b09988_si_004.cif (1.03 MB)
Separation of Monochlorotoluene Isomers by Nonporous Adaptive Crystals of Perethylated Pillar[5]arene and Pillar[6]arene
dataset
posted on 2019-10-18, 17:36 authored by Mengbin Wang, Jiong Zhou, Errui Li, Yujuan Zhou, Qing Li, Feihe HuangSeparation
of monochlorotoluene isomers is a vital process to obtain
highly pure p-chlorotoluene, which is irreplaceable
in the production of medicines and pesticides. However, traditional
separation methods suffer from great energy consumption, cumbersome
operation or use of organic desorbents. Herein, an energy-efficient
and environmentally friendly method is developed through an absorptive
separation strategy based on nonporous adaptive crystals of perethylated
pillar[5]arene (EtP5) and pillar[6]arene (EtP6). EtP5 and EtP6 crystals separate p-chlorotoluene from a p-chlorotoluene/o-chlorotoluene equimolar mixture with purities of 99.1%
and 96.1%, respectively and show no decrease in selectivity upon cycling.
The selectivity is attributed to both the stability of the final crystal
structure upon guest capture and suitable host cavity size/shape.
Besides, we discovered the gate-opening behavior changes of EtP5 crystals at different temperatures after absorption of p-chlorotoluene/o-chlorotoluene mixtures
with various p-chlorotoluene fractions, which is
helpful to understand the thermodynamics of the absorption process.