Purification of ethanol from ethanol/water mixtures is important in industrial separation processes, especially for bioethanol fuel purification. In this work, a robust Cu-triazole metal–organic framework (Cu-Tria) with interconnected 3D supermicroporous channels containing tridentate bridging triazole ligands and rich open Cu²⁺ sites was identified to separate ethanol/water mixtures. By virtue of the size exclusion effect for ethanol and excellent water affinity, this MOF exhibits an ideal molecular sieving effect for ethanol/water separation. The DFT calculation results reveal that a water molecule can form coordination bonds with Cu²⁺ open metal sites, and the subsequent water molecules can form multiple hydrogen bonds with the coordinated water. Breakthrough experiments of water/ethanol mixtures (v/v = 5/95) show that complete water/ethanol separation can be achieved, and online mass spectrometry results reveal that the purity of the collected ethanol from the outlet is up to 99.99%. More importantly, this MOF displays excellent water, alkali, and acid stability, as well as outstanding recyclability for water/ethanol separation. Consequently, the Cu-Tria can be deemed as a potential porous adsorbent for the purification of bioethanol fuel.

中文翻译：

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集成的高水亲和力和尺寸排阻作用对鲁棒的铜基金属-有机骨架进行有效的乙醇-水分离

从乙醇/水混合物中纯化乙醇在工业分离过程中非常重要，特别是对于生物乙醇燃料的纯化。在这项工作中，具有相互连接的3D超微孔通道（包含三齿桥连的三唑配体和丰富的开放Cu ²⁺位点）的坚固的Cu-三唑金属有机框架（Cu-Tria）被鉴定为可分离乙醇/水混合物。凭借对乙醇的尺寸排阻作用和出色的水亲和力，该MOF对乙醇/水分离显示出理想的分子筛分效果。DFT计算结果表明，水分子可以与Cu ²⁺形成配位键打开金属位点，随后的水分子可以与配位的水形成多个氢键。水/乙醇混合物的突破性实验（v / v = 5/95）表明可以实现水/乙醇的完全分离，并且在线质谱分析结果表明，从出口收集的乙醇纯度高达99.99％。更重要的是，该MOF表现出出色的水，碱和酸稳定性，以及出色的水/乙醇分离回收性。因此，可以将Cu-Tria视为用于纯化生物乙醇燃料的潜在多孔吸附剂。