Material Evolution with Nanotechnology, Nanoarchitectonics, and Materials Informatics: What will be the Next Paradigm Shift in Nanoporous Materials?

Materials science and chemistry have played a central and significant role in advancing society. With the shift toward sustainable living, it is anticipated that the development of functional materials will continue to be vital for sustaining life on our planet. In the recent decades, rapid progress has been made in materials science and chemistry owing to the advances in experimental, analytical, and computational methods, thereby producing several novel and useful materials. However, most problems in material development are highly complex. Here, the best strategy for the development of functional materials via the implementation of three key concepts is discussed: nanotechnology as a game changer, nanoarchitectonics as an integrator, and materials informatics as a super-accelerator. Discussions from conceptual viewpoints and example recent developments, chiefly focused on nanoporous materials, are presented. It is anticipated that coupling these three strategies together will open advanced routes for the swift design and exploratory search of functional materials truly useful for solving real-world problems. These novel strategies will result in the evolution of nanoporous functional materials.

In-situ fabrication of nanoarchitectured MOF filter for water purification

Sulfate radical (SO₄^•-)-based advanced oxidation processes (SR-AOPs) hold great promise for water purification due to their strong oxidizing and high selectivity. Recently, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as catalysts for peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation to generate SO₄^•- have shown a bright future. However, the intrinsic nature of powder MOF nanocrystals, such as brittleness and poor processability, largely disturb their large-scale applications in practical. Herein, we develop an in situ growth method to prepare MOF filters. ZIF-67 in situ growth on the polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers lead to the ZIF-67/PAN composite fibers with high loading (up to 50 wt %). The loading ZIF-67 can retain their morphology and structure, which is comparable with that of pristine ZIF-67 powder. The ZIF-67/PAN filter demonstrates a high efficiency for organic pollutants removal by PMS activation. Furthermore, through the fabrication of filtration device, the dynamic catalysis results show the ZIF-67/PAN filter is a promising material for water purification. This work provides a new method for applying MOFs-based functional materials to practical water remediation and other separation applications.