title: Ultra-Tuning of the Rare-Earth fcu-MOF Aperture Size for Selective Molecular Exclusion of Branched Paraffins.
abstract: Using isoreticular chemistry allows the design and construction of a new rare-earth metal (RE) fcu-MOF with a suitable aperture size for practical steric adsorptive separations. The judicious choice of a relatively short organic building block, namely fumarate, to bridge the 12-connected RE hexanuclear clusters has afforded the contraction of the well-defined RE-fcu-MOF triangular window aperture, the sole access to the two interconnected octahedral and tetrahedral cages. The newly constructed RE (Y(3+) and Tb(3+)) fcu-MOF analogues display unprecedented total exclusion of branched paraffins from normal paraffins. The resultant window aperture size of about 4.7 Å, regarded as a sorbate-size cut-off, enabled a complete sieving of branched paraffins from normal paraffins. The results are supported by collective single gas and mixed gas/vapor adsorption and calorimetric studies.
authors.affiliation: Functional Materials Design, Discovery & Development Research Group (FMD3) Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering 4700 King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900 (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) http://fmd3.kaust.edu.sa/Pages/Home.aspx.
authors.forename: Ayalew H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Assen
authors.affiliation: Functional Materials Design, Discovery & Development Research Group (FMD3) Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering 4700 King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900 (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) http://fmd3.kaust.edu.sa/Pages/Home.aspx.
authors.forename: Youssef
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Belmabkhout
authors.affiliation: Functional Materials Design, Discovery & Development Research Group (FMD3) Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering 4700 King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900 (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) http://fmd3.kaust.edu.sa/Pages/Home.aspx.
authors.forename: Karim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Adil
authors.affiliation: Functional Materials Design, Discovery & Development Research Group (FMD3) Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering 4700 King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900 (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) http://fmd3.kaust.edu.sa/Pages/Home.aspx.
authors.forename: Prashant M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Bhatt
authors.affiliation: Functional Materials Design, Discovery & Development Research Group (FMD3) Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering 4700 King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900 (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) http://fmd3.kaust.edu.sa/Pages/Home.aspx.
authors.forename: Dong-Xu
authors.initials: DX
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.affiliation: Functional Materials Design, Discovery & Development Research Group (FMD3) Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering 4700 King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900 (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) http://fmd3.kaust.edu.sa/Pages/Home.aspx.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Functional Materials Design, Discovery & Development Research Group (FMD3) Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering 4700 King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900 (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) http://fmd3.kaust.edu.sa/Pages/Home.aspx. mohamed.eddaoudi@kaust.edu.sa.
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eddaoudi
keywords: hydrocarbons; isoreticular chemistry; metal-organic frameworks; molecular sieves; separation