Metal-organic frameworks for multicomponent gas separation

Given the promise of energy efficiency, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for separation applications have made significant progress through fine-tuning of their pore size and environment. An emerging focus in the field is the one-step separation of multicomponent gas mixtures. Compared with binary mixture separation, multicomponent gas mixtures are more relevant to industrial demand and their separation is more challenging. In this review, the unique features of multicomponent mixture separation are analyzed and new strategies for such a challenging task critically discussed. The separation mechanisms are discussed from a molecular level to provide insights for MOF design. To conclude, fundamental questions for performance optimization have been proposed.