Metal-organic frameworks for highly efficient adsorption of dibenzothiophene from liquid fuels

By taking desulfurization of liquid fuels as a demonstrative example, a bottom-up selection was performed to find the metal-organic frameworks (MOF)-type adsorbents with highly efficient adsorption performance of large molecules. Through carefully analyzing the adsorption mechanism for typical S-heterocyclic compounds like dibenzothiophene (DBT), PCN-10 was selected in consideration of the simultaneous inclusion of several kinds of interactions in the framework. Experimental results demonstrate that this MOF exhibits extraordinary high DBT adsorption capacity (75.24 mg S g(-1)), showing record uptake among all the reported porous materials for the removal of thiophenicsulfur from fuels (below 1000 ppm(w)S), to the best of our knowledge. Moreover, the removal rate for the low sulfur concentration (50 ppm(w)S) can reach beyond 99%. This strategy can be conveniently extended to the screening and design of MOFs for the efficient removal of other important large guest molecules. (c) 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 62: 4491-4496, 2016