Superior removal of arsenic from water with zirconium metal-organic framework UiO-66

Selective and reversible adsorption of cationic dyes by mixed ligand Zn(ii) coordination polymers synthesized by reactant ratio modulation

2D/3D luminescent Zn(ii)-based coordination polymers CP1 and CP2 have been synthesized by reactant ratio modulation. Photoluminescence studies of both CPs; selective and reversible adsorption/separation of cationic dyes by CP1 in the aqueous medium has been investigated.

Adsorption Behaviors of Organic Micropollutants on Zirconium Metal-Organic Framework UiO-66: Analysis of Surface Interactions

Herein, we studied the adsorption behaviors of organic micropollutants, such as anticonvulsant carbamazepine (CBZ) and antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride (TC), on zirconium metal-organic framework UiO-66 in water. The maximum adsorption capacities of CBZ and TC on the UiO-66 were 37.2 and 23.1 mg·g^-1 at 25 °C, respectively. The adsorption isotherms and kinetics of CBZ and TC were well described by using the Langmuir model and pseudo-second-order model, respectively, and the adsorptions on UiO-66 are endothermic reactions. The adsorption capacities of CBZ and TC on UiO-66 were decreased with the increase of solution pH. The presence of humic acid could improve the adsorption of CBZ and TC on UiO-66, but K⁺ ion inhibited their adsorption obviously. In addition, Ca²⁺ and Al³⁺ ions also suppressed the adsorption of TC on UiO-66. The competitive adsorption suggested that the adsorption sites for CBZ on UiO-66 were different from those for TC. The surface interactions between UiO-66 and the two micropollutants were demonstrated by powder X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra, scanning electron microscopy, nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms, and X-ray photoelectron (XPS) spectra. The characterizations showed that the adsorption of CBZ on UiO-66 is mainly a physisorption, and the hydrophobic effect played a crucial role during the adsorption of CBZ; meanwhile weak π-π electron donor-acceptor interaction and electrostatic attraction also existed. However, the adsorption of TC on UiO-66 is mainly a chemisorption; in addition to the strong electrostatic attraction and π-π electron donor-acceptor interaction forces, the nitrogenous groups of TC played an important role, which can replace the carboxylic groups coordinated with Zr-O clusters. The obtained results will aid us to comprehend the surface interaction between organic micropollutants and UiO-66 and expand the application of UiO-66 as sorbent for removal of pollutants from water.

Highly selective capture of phosphate ions from water by a water stable metal-organic framework modified with polyethyleneimine

In this work, a series of polyethyleneimine (PEI) impregnated metal-organic framework (UiO-66) with varying PEI loadings were prepared and applied as sorbents to capture phosphate ions from water. As indicated by SEM and XRD analysis, PEI was dispersed on the outer surface and the inner pores of UiO-66. At 9.45% PEI loadings (UiO-66-3), the saturated adsorption capacity of phosphate reached 73.15 mg P/g at 298 K, which is superior to most sorbents ever reported. UiO-66-3 could sequestrate phosphate over a wide pH range from 2.0 to 7.0 with high efficiency. The sorption toward phosphate reached equilibrium in 50 min. Unlike commercial anion exchanger IRA-900, UiO-66-3 still exhibited high removal toward phosphate even large amount of coexisted anions were present. Successive sorption assay demonstrated that the removal efficiency of UiO-66-3 toward phosphate remained constant after six cyclic runs. All the above results indicated the great potential of UiO-66-3 as a promising sorbent for the decontamination of water from phosphate.

Size Modulation of Zirconium-Based Metal Organic Frameworks for Highly Efficient Phosphate Remediation

Eutrophication of water bodies caused by the excessive phosphate discharge has constituted a serious threat on a global scale. It is imperative to exploit new advanced materials featuring abundant binding sites and high affinity to achieve highly efficient and specific capture of phosphate from polluted waters. Herein, water stable Zr-based metal organic frameworks (MOFs, UiO-66) with rational structural design and size modulation have been successfully synthesized based on a simple solvothermal method for effective phosphate remediation. Impressively, the size of the resulting UiO-66 particles can be effectively adjusted by simply altering reaction time and the amount of acetic acid with the purpose of understanding the crucial effect of structural design on the phosphate capture performance. Representatively, UiO-66 particles with small size demonstrates 415 mg/g of phosphate uptake capacity, outperforming most of the previously reported phosphate adsorbents. Meanwhile, the developed absorbents can rapidly reduce highly concentrated phosphate to below the permitted level in drinking water within a few minutes. More significantly, the current absorbents display remarkable phosphate sorption selectivity against the common interfering ions, which can be attributed to strong affinity between Zr-OH groups in UiO-66 and phosphate species. Furthermore, the spent UiO-66 particles can be readily regenerated and reused for multiple sorption-desorption cycles without obvious decrease in removal performance, rendering them promising sustainable materials. Hence, the developed UiO-66 adsorbents hold significant prospects for phosphate sequestration to mitigate the increasingly eutrophic problems.

Adsorption of organic arsenic acids from water over functionalized metal-organic frameworks

Organic arsenic acids (OAAs) are regarded as water pollutants because of their toxicity and considerable solubility in water. Adsorption of OAAs such as phenylarsonic acid (PAA) and p-arsanilic acid (ASA) from water was investigated over functionalized (with OH groups) metal-organic framework (MOF, MIL-101), as well as over pristine MIL-101 and commercial activated carbon. The highly porous MIL-101 bearing three hydroxyl groups (MIL-101(OH)₃) exhibited remarkable PAA and ASA adsorption capacities. Based on the effects of pH on PAA and ASA adsorption, hydrogen bonding was suggested as a plausible mechanism of OAA adsorption. Importantly, OAAs and MIL-101(OH)₃ can be viewed as hydrogen-bond acceptors and donors, respectively. Moreover, MIL-101(OH)₃ could be regenerated by acidic ethanol treatment, being a promising adsorbent for the removal of PAA and ASA from water.

Thin Film Nanocomposite Membrane Filled with Metal-Organic Frameworks UiO-66 and MIL-125 Nanoparticles for Water Desalination

Knowing that the world is facing a shortage of fresh water, desalination, in its different forms including reverse osmosis, represents a practical approach to produce potable water from a saline source. In this report, two kinds of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) nanoparticles (NPs), UiO-66 (~100 nm) and MIL-125 (~100 nm), were embedded separately into thin-film composite membranes in different weight ratios, 0%, 0.05%, 0.1%, 0.15%, 0.2%, and 0.3%. The membranes were synthesized by the interfacial polymerization (IP) of m-phenylenediamine (MPD) in aqueous solution and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) in an organic phase. The as-prepared membranes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), contact angle measurement, attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR FT-IR) spectroscopy, and salt rejection and water flux assessments. Results showed that both UiO-66 and MIL-125 could improve the membranes’ performance and the impacts depended on the NPs loading. At the optimum NPs loadings, 0.15% for UiO-66 and 0.3% for MIL-125, the water flux increased from 62.5 L/m² h to 74.9 and 85.0 L/m² h, respectively. NaCl rejection was not significantly affected (UiO-66) or slightly improved (MIL-125) by embedding these NPs, always at >98.5% as tested at 2000 ppm salt concentration and 300 psi transmembrane pressure. The results from this study demonstrate that it is promising to apply MOFs NPs to enhance the TFC membrane performance for desalination.

Construction of hierarchically porous metal-organic frameworks through linker labilization

A major goal of metal–organic framework (MOF) research is the expansion of pore size and volume. Although many approaches have been attempted to increase the pore size of MOF materials, it is still a challenge to construct MOFs with precisely customized pore apertures for specific applications. Herein, we present a new method, namely linker labilization, to increase the MOF porosity and pore size, giving rise to hierarchical-pore architectures. Microporous MOFs with robust metal nodes and pro-labile linkers were initially synthesized. The mesopores were subsequently created as crystal defects through the splitting of a pro-labile-linker and the removal of the linker fragments by acid treatment. We demonstrate that linker labilization method can create controllable hierarchical porous structures in stable MOFs, which facilitates the diffusion and adsorption process of guest molecules to improve the performances of MOFs in adsorption and catalysis.

Expanding pore sizes and volumes in metal-organic frameworks is challenging, but crucial for the encapsulation of larger guest molecules. Here, Zhou and colleagues report a linker labilization strategy to construct MOFs containing hierarchical pore architectures with dimensions ranging from 1.5 to 18 nm.

Thin-Film Nanocomposite (TFN) Membranes Incorporated with Super-Hydrophilic Metal-Organic Framework (MOF) UiO-66: Toward Enhancement of Water Flux and Salt Rejection

Zirconiumv (IV)-carboxylate metal-organic framework (MOF) UiO-66 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized and incorporated in the polyamide (PA) selective layer to fabricate novel thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes. Compared to unmodified pure polyamide thin-film composite (TFC) membranes, the incorporation of UiO-66 nanoparticles significantly changes the membrane morphology and chemistry, leading to an improvement of intrinsic separation properties due to the molecular sieving and superhydrophilic nature of UiO-66 particles. The best performing TFN-U2 (0.1 wt % particle loading) membrane not only shows a 52% increase of water permeability but also maintains salt rejection levels (∼95%) similar to the benchmark. The effects of UiO-66 loading on the forward osmosis (FO) performance were also investigated. Incorporation of 0.1 wt % UiO-66 produced a maximum water flux increase of 40% and 25% over the TFC control under PRO and FO modes, when 1 M NaCl was used as the draw solution against deionized water feed. Meanwhile, solute reverse flux was maintained at a relatively low level. In addition, TFN-U2 membrane displayed a relatively linear increase in FO water flux with increasing NaCl concentration up to 2.0 M, suggesting a slightly reduced internal concentration polarization effect. To our best knowledge, the current study is the first to consider implementation of Zr-MOFs (UiO-66) onto TFN-FO membranes.

A dual-functional UiO-66/TiO2 composite for water treatment and CO2 capture

UiO-66/TiO₂ composites were fabricated via self-assembly using a solvothermal method.

All-gas-phase synthesis of UiO-66 through modulated atomic layer deposition

Thin films of stable metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) such as UiO-66 have enormous application potential, for instance in microelectronics. However, all-gas-phase deposition techniques are currently not available for such MOFs. We here report on thin-film deposition of the thermally and chemically stable UiO-66 in an all-gas-phase process by the aid of atomic layer deposition (ALD). Sequential reactions of ZrCl₄ and 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid produce amorphous organic-inorganic hybrid films that are subsequently crystallized to the UiO-66 structure by treatment in acetic acid vapour. We also introduce a new approach to control the stoichiometry between metal clusters and organic linkers by modulation of the ALD growth with additional acetic acid pulses. An all-gas-phase synthesis technique for UiO-66 could enable implementations in microelectronics that are not compatible with solvothermal synthesis. Since this technique is ALD-based, it could also give enhanced thickness control and the possibility to coat irregular substrates with high aspect ratios.

The dual capture of AsV and AsIII by UiO-66 and analogues

UiO-66 and analogues were successfully tailored to chemoselectively capture As^V oxyanions at the hydroxylated node and neutral As^III species with the thiolated organic linkers. More efficient and faster uptake of As^V can be achieved with increasing defect densities, increasing pore aperture sizes, and decreasing particle sizes.

UiO-66 and analogues were successfully tailored to chemoselectively capture As^V oxyanions at the hydroxylated node and neutral As^III species with the thiolated organic linkers. More efficient and faster uptake can be achieved with increasing defect densities, increasing pore aperture sizes, and decreasing particle sizes.

Zirconium/PVA modified flat-sheet PVDF membrane as a cost-effective adsorptive and filtration material: A case study on decontamination of organic arsenic in aqueous solutions

Organic arsenic in waters has been a global concern in drinking water due to its higher toxicity to humans. In this study, a novel zirconium/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) modified polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane was applied to remove organic arsenic from water. The impregnation of zirconium ions within the modified membrane was attributed to the coordination reactions among the zirconium ions, ether and hydroxyl groups. The synthesized membrane worked better at the acidic conditions and achieved the optimal uptake for both monomethylarsonic (MMA) and dimethylarsinic (DMA) at pH 2.0. The adsorption isotherm study demonstrated that the adsorption of both organic arsenic species was controlled by the mono-layer adsorption process; the maximum adsorption capacities for MMA and DMA were 73.04 and 37.53mg/g at pH 2, and 29.78 and 19.03mg/g at pH 7.0, respectively. The presence of humic acid had a negligible impact on the uptake of organic arsenic, whereas varying impacts on the arsenic adsorption were observed due to the presence of coexisting anions such as fluoride, phosphate, carbonate and silicate. A single piece of membrane with a surface area of only 12.56cm(2) could treat 7.5-L MMA and 4.1-L DMA solution with an influent concentration of about 100μg/L to meet the WHO and USEPA standard of 10μg/L. Based on the XPS analyses, the ion exchange reaction between chloride ions on the membrane surface and organic arsenic species was responsible for the removal of both MMA and DMA.

A metal–organic framework/α-alumina composite with a novel geometry for enhanced adsorptive separation

Incorporation of MOF UiO-66 into an advanced α-alumina matrix leads to a novel composite concept for enhanced adsorptive separation.

Applications of water stable metal–organic frameworks

A comprehensive review is given on the applications of water stable metal–organic frameworks in areas of adsorption, membrane separation, sensing, catalysis, and proton conduction.