A purely green approach to low-cost mass production of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks

Although zeolitic imidazolate frameworks(ZIFs)have bright prospects in wide fields like gas storage/separation,catalysis and medicine,etc.,their large-scale applications are bottlenecked by the absence of their low-cost commercial production technique.Here,we report an uncon ventional method suitable for environmentally friendly and low-cost mass-production of ZIFs.In this method,taking the synthesis of ZIF-8 as an example,ZnO was used instead of Zn(NO_(3))_(2) in traditional solvent synthesis methods and CO_(2) was introduced to dissolve ZnO in aqueous solution of 2-methylimidazole(HMeim)and form water soluble salt([ZnMeim]^(+)[MeimCOO]^(-))at room temperature.Then,by removing CO_(2) through heating or vacuuming,Meim-ions are produced and instantaneously assemble with[ZnMeim]^(+)s to generate ZIF-8 without any by product.Due to the absence of strong acid anions(such as NO^(-)_(3) and Cl^(-) et al.)in solution,the washing of filter cake required in the conventional approaches could be omitted and the filtrate containing only water and HMeim could be reused completely.This method is really green as no waste gas or liquid generates because CO_(2) and water could be recycled perfectly.It overcomes almost all bottlenecks occurred in commercial production of ZIF-8 when using traditional methods.A pilot plant was established for mass-production of ZIF-8 and hundreds kilograms of ZIF-8 was produced,which indicates that the new method is not only environmentally friendly but also low cost and commercial accessibility.It is expected that the new method would open an avenue for commercial applications of ZIFs.

A continuous and high-efficiency process to separate coal bed methane with porous ZIF-8 slurry:Experimental study and mathematical modelling

Coal bed methane has been considered as an important energy resource.One major difficulty of purifying coal bed methane comes from the similar physical properties of CH_4 and N_2.The ZIF-8/water-glycol slurry was used as a medium to separate coal bed methane by fluidifying the solid adsorbent material.The sorption equilibrium experiment of binary mixture(CH_4/N_2)and slurry was conducted.The selectivity of CH_4 to N_2 is within the range of 2-6,which proved the feasibility of the slurry separation method.The modified Langmuir equation was used to describe the gas-slurry phase equilibrium behavior,and the calculated results were in good agreement with the experimental data.A continuous absorption-adsorption and desorption process on the separation of CH_4/N_2 in slurry is proposed and its mathematical model is also developed.Sensitivity analysis is conducted to determine the operation conditions and the energy performance of the proposed process was also evaluated.Feed gas contains 30 mol%of methane and the methane concentration in product gas is 95.46 mol%with the methane recovery ratio of 90.74%.The total energy consumption for per unit volume of product gas is determined as 1.846 kWh Nm^(-3).Experimental results and process simulation provide basic data for the design and operation of pilot and industrial plant.