Yuanlong Xiao

An ultrastable Zr metal–organic framework with a thiophene-type ligand containing methyl groups

An ultrastable metal–organic framework can remain intact in pH = 0 to 12 solutions and boiling water, attributed to the steric hindrance and electronic effect of methyl groups as well as strong Zr–O bonds. This MOF exhibits good adsorption and sensing performance for Hg0 vapor because of the presence of thiophene.

Highly Selective Adsorption and Separation of Aniline/Phenol from Aqueous Solutions by Microporous MIL-53(Al): A Combined Experimental and Computational Study

Experimental measurements have been combined with molecular simulations to investigate the adsorption and separation of aniline/phenol mixtures from aqueous solutions by the aluminum terephthalate MIL-53. The results show that the framework flexibility of this material plays a crucial role in the adsorption process and thus can greatly enhance the separation of the aniline/phenol mixture from their solutions. Compared with the conventional adsorbents, MIL-53(Al) shows the best performance for such systems of interest, from the points of view of both the adsorption capacities and the selectivities for aniline. The findings obtained in this work may facilitate more investigations in connection with the application of flexible nanoporous materials for the separation of organic compounds from liquid-phase environments.

Recovery of acetone from aqueous solution by ZIF-7/PDMS mixed matrix membranes

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have exhibited promising applications in gas and liquid separation. As a subclass of MOFs, zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) are attracting more and more interest because of their unique thermal and chemical stability. One of the representative ZIFs, ZIF-7, has super-hydrophobic pores, making it a perfect filler in polymer membranes for recovering acetone from fermentation broths. In this study, mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) based on ZIF-7 and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) were prepared, which display improved acetone–water total flux and separation factors simultaneously compared with a pure PDMS membrane. The separation factor can reach up to 39.1 with a high flux of 1236.8 g m−2 h−1 at 333 K, which is the highest value among those reported up to now to the best of our knowledge.

Synthesis of MIL-88B(Fe)/Matrimid mixed-matrix membranes with high hydrogen permselectivity

A cheap and biocompatible metal–organic framework MIL-88B(Fe) (MIL = Material Institut Lavoisier) was synthesized and incorporated into Matrimid® 5218 to fabricate mixed-matrix membranes (MMMs) for gas separation. Separation performances of the MIL-88B(Fe)/Matrimid MMMs were tested for the single gas permeation of H2 and CH4 as well as the mixture gas separation of an equimolar binary H2–CH4 mixture. Due to the molecular sieving effect, the incorporation of MIL-88B(Fe) can enhance H2 permeability but hinder the transport of CH4 in MIL-88B(Fe)/Matrimid MMMs, thus resulting in enhanced separation selectivity of H2–CH4. At 298 K and ΔP = 3.0 bar, compared with those of a pure polymeric membrane, the H2 permeability and H2–CH4 mixture separation factor of MMMs with a MIL-88B(Fe) loading of 10% increased by 16% and 66%, respectively. In addition, the operation temperature has a significantly positive effect on the separation of a H2–CH4 mixture.

Computational design of metal–organic frameworks for aniline recovery from aqueous solution

In this work, molecular simulations combined with experimental measurements were conducted to screen candidate metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for aniline recovery from aqueous solution. The structure–property relationships that can correlate the recovery performance of the MOFs to their physicochemical features were analyzed. The results show that the interplay between the isosteric heat of adsorption of aniline and the free volume of the material is crucial to the aniline recovery capability of MOFs at low concentrations. In contrast, the aniline uptake at high concentrations is dominated by the materials free volume as usually expected. In addition, the requirements of the best MOF candidates for aniline recovery were suggested in this study. Based on the conclusions drawn from the screening route, several novel MOFs were further computationally designed, which possess high aniline uptake within the whole range of concentrations examined. The obtained information may be helpful for in-depth research to broaden the applications of MOFs in mixture separation under liquid phase conditions.