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Electrophoretic Crystallization of Ultrathin High-performance Metal-organic Framework Membranes
Published on: August 16, 2018
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Specific oriented metal-organic framework membranes and their facet-tuned separation performance
Yiyin Mao1, Binbin Su, Wei Cao
1State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and ‡Cyrus Tang Center for Sensor Materials and Application, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University , Hangzhou 310027, P. R. China.
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
|September 4, 2014
Summary
Controlling metal-organic framework (MOF) crystal facets creates tailored membranes for gas separation. This study demonstrates facet-dependent performance in HKUST-1 membranes, enabling selective CO2 and SF6 separation.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Chemical Engineering
- Nanotechnology
Background:
- Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) offer tunable properties for various applications.
- Crystal morphology and exposed facets significantly influence MOF performance.
- Controlling MOF crystal facets is key to developing advanced separation materials.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of crystal facet modulation on HKUST-1 membrane performance for gas separation.
- To synthesize HKUST-1 membranes with controlled morphologies (cubes, cuboctahedrons, octahedrons).
- To establish a relationship between exposed facets, pore size, and gas separation efficiency.
Main Methods:
- Immobilization of citrate modulators on Au nanoparticles and copper hydroxide nanostrands to form HKUST-1 cube crystals.
- Synthesis of HKUST-1 cuboctahedron and octahedron membranes in different solvent systems without Au nanoparticles.
- Characterization of HKUST-1 membranes and evaluation of their gas separation performance (permeance and selectivity).
Main Results:
- HKUST-1 cube membranes ({001} facets) exhibited high permeance but low selectivity.
- HKUST-1 octahedron membranes ({111} facets) showed high selectivity but low permeance due to smaller window sizes (0.46 nm vs. 0.9 nm).
- Successful separation of CO2 (0.38 nm) from SF6 (0.55 nm) was achieved using the HKUST-1 octahedron membrane.
Conclusions:
- Facet control is a viable strategy for designing MOF-based separation membranes.
- Tailoring exposed crystal facets allows for tuning gas separation performance.
- This approach offers a new pathway for developing high-performance MOF separation membranes.
