Recent progress in metal–organic frameworks for the separation of gaseous hydrocarbons

The separation of gaseous hydrocarbons is involved in many important industrial processes for manufacturing chemicals, polymers, plastics, and fuels, and is performed through cryogenic distillation, which is heavily energy-intensive. Adsorption-based gas separation technology by using adsorbent materials can potentially fulfill a much energy-efficient gas separation. As a new generation of adsorbent materials, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have been demonstrated to have great potential in addressing important gas separations of hydrocarbons. In this review, we outline the uniqueness of MOF adsorbents for their separation application for gaseous hydrocarbons. A variety of microporous MOFs have been developed for separating gaseous hydrocarbons, which have been achieved by fine-tuning their pore sizes for high molecular sieving effects and/or immobilizing binding sites on their pore surfaces for their specific recognition of small molecules. Herein, we highlight recent important progress in this very important topic, focusing on the purification of ethylene, propylene, and butadiene.