Ag+ anchored on hyper-crosslinked polymers as sorbent for C6, C7 and C8 olefin/paraffin separation

•Ag+ anchored on hyper-crosslinked polymer is designed as π-complex sorbent.•Separation of binary C6, C7 and C8 olefin/paraffin mixtures is achieved.•Ag+ site density is a key indicator of adsorption capacity and separation factor. Liquid phase olefin/paraffin (O/P) separation has been less investigated thus far with respect to the gas phase counterparts, and the porous materials sorbents are limited to zeolites or metal organic frameworks (MOFs). Here, we designed Ag+ anchored on sulfonic group modified hyper-crosslinked polymers as sorbents for liquid olefin/paraffin (O/P) separation. Isotherms and breakthrough curves for adsorption measurement from 1-hexene/n-hexane mixture demonstrate that the adsorption capacity and separation factor increased with increasing adsorption site density. Comparisons to the homologue binary O/P series of C7 and C8 show that both adsorption capacity and separation factor decline with increasing carbon chain length.