PNNL

Abstract

The global demand for Xe, a noble gas with applications in electronics, lighting, and the medical industry, is expected to rise significantly over the coming decades. However, the low abundance of Xe in the earth’s atmosphere and the costly cryogenic distillation process that is used to obtain Xe commercially via air separation have limited the scale of applications of Xe. A physisorption-based separation using porous materials may be a viable and cost-effective alternative to cryogenic distillation. In particular, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have shown promise as highly Xe-selective, porous solids. In this review, we detail the recent advances of MOFs as adsorbents for noble gas adsorption/separation and the role of computer simulation in finding optimal materials for Xe adsorption.