Chromatographic separation through confinement in nanocages

• The Metal-Organic Framework UiO-66 is applied as a stationary phase in GC and LC.
• Difficult isomer mixtures are separated by exploiting confinement effects.
• Extremely high reversed shape selectivity in nanocages is observed.

Porous materials such as metal-organic frameworks offer great potential for separation technologies. Over the past decade the synthesis of a large number of new structures has been reported but relatively little attention has been given to the application of these novel adsorbents as stationary phases in gas or liquid chromatography. In this work, we report on the potential of the metal-organic framework UiO-66 for the separation of cyclic isomers. The extremely high preferential retention of cyclic hydrocarbons of the aromatic’s and functionalized cycloalkane’s type is exploited to achieve difficult separations. Confinement effects play a crucial role in fine-tuning the adsorbent’s properties.

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