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Updated: Feb 2, 2026

Synthesis and Characterization of Functionalized Metal-organic Frameworks
Published on: September 5, 2014
Paralyzed membrane: Current-driven synthesis of a metal-organic framework with sharpened propene/propane separation
Sheng Zhou1, Yanying Wei1, Libo Li1
1School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Metal-organic framework (MOF) membranes show great promise for propene/propane separation, yet a sharp molecular sieving has not been achieved due to their inherent linker mobility. Here, zeolitic imidazolate framework ZIF-8-type membranes with suppressed linker mobility are prepared by a fast current-driven synthesis (FCDS) strategy within 20 min, showing sharpened molecular sieving for propene/propane separation with a separation factor above 300. During membrane synthesis, the direct current promotes the metal ions and ligands to assemble into inborn-distorted and stiffer frameworks with ZIF-8_Cm (a newly discovered polymorph of ZIF-8) accounting for 60 to 70% of the membrane composition. Molecular dynamics simulations further verify that ZIF-8_Cm is superior to ZIF-8_I (the common cubic phase) for propene/propane separation. FCDS holds great potential to produce high-quality, ultrathin MOF membranes on a large scale.
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