A solvent-free porous liquid comprising hollow nanorod-polymer surfactant conjugates

Porous liquids: a novel porous medium for efficient carbon dioxide capture

Porous liquids (PLs) are the combination of porous solid material and flowing liquid, which provides alternative options to solve difficulties in the development of porous solids. With the booming development of PLs since 2015, plenty of syntheses and applications have been reported with a specific focus on gas adsorption. Given the lack of a comprehensive review, this paper reviews the application of PLs in CO2 capture. To start with, ground-breaking case studies are reviewed to help understand the progress of PLs research. Then, as a major part of this paper, studies of PLs for CO2 capture are reviewed separately. Moreover, five basic properties of porous liquids, including stability, viscosity, selectivity, porosity, capacity, and the influencing factors are systemically reviewed respectively. Furthermore, gas storage and release mechanisms in PLs are briefly outlined, and potential processing methods of PLs used for CO2 capture are discussed.

Lead Extraction in a Functionalized and Permeable Silica-Based Porous Liquid

Silica-based porous liquids (PLs) are innovative and versatile liquid materials with a high potential, although their application is often restricted to gas sorption. In this work, we propose to evaluate their potential to extract metals. For this goal, we have adapted their synthesis to provide PLs functionalized with thiols that are expected to chelate metallic contaminants, such as lead. As the accessibility of liquids and metals to the PL's porous network is one of the key points for their application, we developed an original small-angle neutron scattering experiment to verify that the PL is permeable to polar liquids. Then, preliminary extraction tests have successfully been carried out, with an extraction of lead cations by complexation on one-third of accessible thiol groups. This work demonstrates that the extraction of metal species by a PL is possible and opens many perspectives for optimization.

Hydrophobic Porous Liquids with Controlled Cavity Size and Physico-Chemical Properties

Developing greener hydrometallurgical processes implies offering alternatives to conventional solvents used for liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) of metals. In this context, it is proposed to substitute the organic phase by a hydrophobic silica-based porous liquid (PL). Two different sulfonated hollow silica particles (HSPs) are modified with various polyethoxylated fatty amines (EthAs) forming a canopy that provides both the targeted hydrophobicity and liquefying properties. This study shows that these properties can be tuned by varying the number of ethylene oxide units in the EthA: middle-range molecular weight EthAs allow obtaining a liquid at room temperature, while too short or too long EthA leads to solid particles. Viscosity is also impacted by the density and size of the silica spheres: less viscous PLs are obtained with small low-density spheres, while for larger spheres (c.a. 200 nm) the density has a less significant impact on viscosity. According to this approach, hydrophobic PLs are successfully synthesized. When contacted with an aqueous phase, the most hydrophobic PLs obtained allow a subsequent phase separation. Preliminary extraction tests on three rare earth elements have further shown that functionalization of the PL is necessary to observe metal extraction.

Practical considerations in the design and use of porous liquids

The possibility of creating well-controlled empty space within liquids is conceptually intriguing, and from an application perspective, full of potential. Since the concept of porous liquids (PLs) arose several years ago, research efforts in this field have intensified. This review highlights the design, synthesis, and applicability of PLs through a thorough examination of the current state-of-the-art. Following a detailed examination of the fundamentals of PLs, we examine the different synthetic approaches proposed to date, discuss the nature of PLs, and their pathway from the laboratory to practical application. Finally, possible challenges and opportunities are outlined.

Porous liquids - the future is looking emptier

The development of microporosity in the liquid state is leading to an inherent change in the way we approach applications of functional porosity, potentially allowing access to new processes by exploiting the fluidity of these new materials. By engineering permanent porosity into a liquid, over the transient intermolecular porosity in all liquids, it is possible to design and form a porous liquid. Since the concept was proposed in 2007, and the first examples realised in 2015, the field has seen rapid advances among the types and numbers of porous liquids developed, our understanding of the structure and properties, as well as improvements in gas uptake and molecular separations. However, despite these recent advances, the field is still young, and with only a few applications reported to date, the potential that porous liquids have to transform the field of microporous materials remains largely untapped. In this review, we will explore the theory and conception of porous liquids and cover major advances in the area, key experimental characterisation techniques and computational approaches that have been employed to understand these systems, and summarise the investigated applications of porous liquids that have been presented to date. We also outline an emerging discovery workflow with recommendations for the characterisation required at each stage to both confirm permanent porosity and fully understand the physical properties of the porous liquid.

Type II porous ionic liquid based on metal-organic cages that enables L-tryptophan identification

Porous liquids with chemical separation properties are quite well-studied in general, but there is only a handful of reports in the context of identification and separation of non-gaseous molecules. Herein, we report a Type II porous ionic liquid composed of coordination cages that exhibits exceptional selectivity towards L-tryptophan (L-Trp) over other aromatic amino acids. A previously known class of anionic organic-inorganic hybrid doughnut-like cage (HD) is dissolved in trihexyltetradecylphosphonium chloride (THTP_Cl). The resulting liquid, HD/THTP_Cl, is thereby composed of common components, facile to prepare, and exhibit room temperature fluidity. The permanent porosity is manifested by the high-pressure isotherm for CH4 and modeling studies. With evidence from time-dependent amino acid uptake, competitive extraction studies and molecular dynamic simulations, HD/THTP_Cl exhibit better selectivity towards L-Trp than other solid state sorbents, and we attribute it to not only the intrinsic porosity of HD but also the host-guest interactions between HD and L-Trp. Specifically, each HD unit is filled with nearly 5 L-Trp molecules, which is higher than the L-Trp occupation in the structure unit of other benchmark metal-organic frameworks.

Composite Porous Liquid for Recyclable Sequestration, Storage and In Situ Catalytic Conversion of Carbon Dioxide at Room Temperature

Permanent pores combined with fluidity renders flow processability to porous liquids otherwise not seen in porous solids. Although porous liquids have been utilized for sequestration of different gases and their separation, there is still a dearth of studies for deploying in situ chemical reactions to convert adsorbed gases into utility chemicals. Here, we show the design and development of a new type of solvent-less and hybrid (meso-)porous liquid composite, which, as demonstrated for the first time, can be used for in situ carbon mineralization of adsorbed CO₂ . The recyclable porous liquid composite comprising polymer-surfactant modified hollow silica nanorods and carbonic anhydrase enzyme not only sequesters (5.5 cm³  g^-1 at 273 K and 1 atm) and stores CO₂ but is also capable of driving an in situ enzymatic reaction for hydration of CO₂ to HCO₃ ^- ion, subsequently converting it to CaCO₃ due to reaction with pre-dissolved Ca²⁺ . Light and electron microscopy combined with X-ray diffraction reveals the nucleation and growth of calcite and aragonite crystals. Moreover, the liquid-like property of the porous composite material can be harnessed by executing the same reaction via diffusion of complimentary Ca²⁺ and HCO₃ ^- ions through different compartments separated by an interfacial channel. These studies provide a proof of concept of deploying chemical reactions within porous liquids for developing utility chemical from adsorbed molecules.

Transforming Metal-Organic Frameworks into Porous Liquids via a Covalent Linkage Strategy for CO2 Capture

Porous liquids (PLs), an emerging kind of liquid materials with permanent porosity, have attracted increasing attention in gas capture. However, directly turning metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) into PLs via a covalent linkage surface engineering strategy has not been reported. Additionally, challenges including reducing the cost and simplifying the preparation process are daunting. Herein, we proposed a general method to transform Universitetet i Oslo (UiO)-66-OH MOFs into PLs by surface engineering with organosilane (OS) and oligomer species via covalent bonding linkage. The oligomer species endow UiO-66-OH with superior fluidity at room temperature. Meanwhile, the resulting PLs showed great potential in both CO₂ adsorption and CO₂/N₂ selective separation. The residual porosity of PLs was verified by diverse characterizations and molecular simulations. Besides, CO₂ selective capture sites were determined by grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulation. Furthermore, the universality of the covalent linkage surface engineering strategy was confirmed using different classes of oligomer species and another MOF (ZIF-8-bearing amino groups). Notably, this strategy can be extended to construct other PLs by taking advantages of the rich library of oligomer species, thus making PLs promising candidates for further applications in energy and environment-related fields, such as gas capture, separation, and catalysis.