The discovery of a method to separate isotopologues, molecular entities that differ in only isotopic composition¹, is fundamentally and technologically essential but remains challenging^2,3. Water isotopologues, which are very important in biological processes, industry, medical care, etc. are among the most difficult isotopologue pairs to separate because of their very similar physicochemical properties and chemical exchange equilibrium. Herein, we report efficient separation of water isotopologues at room temperature by constructing two porous coordination polymers (PCPs, or metal–organic frameworks) in which flip-flop molecular motions within the frameworks provide diffusion-regulatory functionality. Guest traffic is regulated by the local motions of dynamic gates on contracted pore apertures, thereby amplifying the slight differences in the diffusion rates of water isotopologues. Significant temperature-responsive adsorption occurs on both PCPs: H₂O vapour is preferentially adsorbed into the PCPs, with substantially increased uptake compared to that of D₂O vapour, facilitating kinetics-based vapour separation of H₂O/HDO/D₂O ternary mixtures with high H₂O separation factors of around 210 at room temperature.

分离同位素异数体（仅同位素组成不同的分子实体¹）的方法的发现从根本上和技术上都是必不可少的，但仍然具有挑战性^2,3. 在生物过程、工业、医疗等领域非常重要的水同位素体是最难分离的同位素体对之一，因为它们的物理化学性质和化学交换平衡非常相似。在此，我们报告了通过构建两种多孔配位聚合物（PCP 或金属有机框架）在室温下有效分离水同位素体，其中框架内的触发器分子运动提供扩散调节功能。客流量受收缩孔径上动态门的局部运动调节，从而放大了水同位素体扩散率的微小差异。两种 PCP 均发生显着的温度响应吸附：H ₂O 蒸气优先吸附到 PCP 中，与 D ₂ O 蒸气相比吸收量显着增加，促进基于动力学的 H ₂ O/HDO/D ₂ O 三元混合物的蒸气分离，H ₂ O 分离因子约为 210在室温下。