Separation of benzene vs. cyclohexane is a challenging process in the chemical industry. Their separation involves energetically costly distillation processes. Alternative separati.on processes based on selective adsorption by porous materials are less energy demanding but require a trade-off between selectivity and diffusion kinetics. This approach not only could be more energy efficient, but also does not produce waste.

To achieve this goal, we focused the attention on metal-organic polyhedral and polymeric materials of variable framework rigidity and pare size to study the impact of pare plasticity and dimension on molecular diffusivity, hence on the efficiency of the separation process.