A flipping action in a porous material facilitates the passage of normal water to separate it out from heavy water. A research group led by Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University’s Institute for Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS), Japan and Cheng Gu of South China University of Technology, China have ma
Incorporating dragonfly-shaped gate molecules into PCP/MOFs makes it a hundred times more efficient than before to separate water from heavy water, which has been difficult to separate due to their similar properties. Credit: Mindy Takamiya/Kyoto University iCeMS
A research group led by Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University’s Institute for Cell-Material Sciences , Japan and Cheng Gu of South China University of Technology, China have made a material that can effectively separate heavy water from normal water at room temperature. Until now, this process has been very difficult and energy intensive. The findings have implications for industrial – and even biological – processes that involve using different forms of the same molecule.
Gu and chemist Susumu Kitagawa, together with colleagues, based their separation technique on a copper-based porous coordination polymer . PCPs are porous crystalline materials formed of metal nodes connected by organic linkers. The team tested two PCPs made with different types of linkers. When the scientists exposed their ‘flip-flop dynamic crystals’ to vapour containing a mixture of normal, heavy and semi-heavy water and then slightly warmed it, they adsorbed normal water much faster than they did the other two isotopologues. Crucially, this process happened within room temperature ranges.
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