Porous organic cages for quantum sieving
AssigneeThe University of Liverpool
InventorsAndrew I. Cooper, Ming Liu, Marc A. Little, Linjiang Chen
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Abstract
The present invention relates to methods of preferentially sorbing, from a target mixture, one or more target substance(s) over one or more non-target substance(s). In particular, porous organic cages (POCs) may be deployed in the quantum sieving of mixtures of hydrogen isotopes to selectively sorb heavy hydrogen isotopes (e.g. diatomic deuterium) over lighter isotopes (diatomic protium).
Claims45
A method of extracting one or more target substance(s) from a target mixture comprising one or more target substance(s) and one or more non-target substance(s), the method comprising preferentially sorbing the target substance(s) over the non-target substance(s) by contacting the target mixture with a sorption composition, at a predetermined contacting temperature, to provide a sorbed composition and a treated target mixture;
- wherein:
- the sorption composition comprises a sorption compound, which is a porous organic cage comprising an internal cavity having a cavity size within +/−4 Å of the thermal de Broglie wavelength, at the contacting temperature, of the target substance(s);
- the sorbed composition comprises the sorption composition with the target substance(s), or a mixture relatively enriched in target substance(s) as compared to the target mixture, sorbed therein;
- and
- the treated target mixture is relatively enriched in the non-target substance(s) as compared to the target mixture;
- wherein the target substance(s) have a shorter thermal de Broglie wavelength than the non-target substance(s).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.