Design and control of gas diffusion process in a nanoporous soft crystal

Design of the gas-diffusion process in a porous material is challenging because a contracted pore aperture is a prerequisite, whereas the channel traffic of guest molecules is regulated by the flexible and dynamic motions of nanochannels. Here, we present the rational design of a diffusion-regulatory system in a porous coordination polymer (PCP) in which flip-flop molecular motions within the framework structure provide kinetic gate functions that enable efficient gas separation and storage. The PCP shows substantial temperature-responsive adsorption in which the adsorbate molecules are differentiated by each gate-admission temperature, facilitating kinetics-based gas separations of oxygen/argon and ethylene/ethane with high selectivities of ~350 and ~75, respectively. Additionally, we demonstrate the long-lasting physical encapsulation of ethylene at ambient conditions, owing to strongly impeded diffusion in distinctive nanochannels.