Assembly of Four Kinds of Cages into Porous Metal-Organic Framework for Selective Sorption of Light Hydrocarbons

The direct assembly of four kinds of cages by face-sharing and edge-sharing modes with Zn-3(mu 3-OH)(H2O)(COO)(4) units and organic ligands generates a porous framework material including 3D channels, which shows high adsorption enthalpy of C3H8 (35 kJ/mol) and excellent adsorption selectivity of C3H8 over CH4 under ambient conditions.