Barely porous organic cages for hydrogen isotope separation

The separation of hydrogen isotopes for applications such as nuclear fusion is a major challenge. Current technologies are energy intensive and inefficient. Nanoporous materials have the potential to separate hydrogen isotopes by kinetic quantum sieving, but high separation selectivity tends to corr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2019-11, Vol.366 (6465), p.613-620
Main Authors: Liu, Ming, Zhang, Linda, Little, Marc A, Kapil, Venkat, Ceriotti, Michele, Yang, Siyuan, Ding, Lifeng, Holden, Daniel L, Balderas-Xicohténcatl, Rafael, He, Donglin, Clowes, Rob, Chong, Samantha Y, Schütz, Gisela, Chen, Linjiang, Hirscher, Michael, Cooper, Andrew I
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adsorption
Apertures
Cage molecules
Cages
Cavities
Deuterium
Hydrogen
Hydrogen isotopes
Isotope separation
Isotopes
Kinetics
Nuclear fusion
Pore size
Porosity
Selectivity
Sieves
Ultrafines
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Summary:The separation of hydrogen isotopes for applications such as nuclear fusion is a major challenge. Current technologies are energy intensive and inefficient. Nanoporous materials have the potential to separate hydrogen isotopes by kinetic quantum sieving, but high separation selectivity tends to correlate with low adsorption capacity, which can prohibit process scale-up. In this study, we use organic synthesis to modify the internal cavities of cage molecules to produce hybrid materials that are excellent quantum sieves. By combining small-pore and large-pore cages together in a single solid, we produce a material with optimal separation performance that combines an excellent deuterium/hydrogen selectivity (8.0) with a high deuterium uptake (4.7 millimoles per gram).
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.aax7427