Benign Integration of a Zn-Azolate Metal-Organic Framework onto Textile Fiber for Ammonia Capture

Ammonia (NH₃) exposure has a serious impact on human health because of its toxic and corrosive nature. Therefore, efficient personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks is necessary to eliminate and mitigate NH₃ exposure risks. Because economically and environmentally viable conditions are of interest for large-scale manufacture of PPE, we herein report a benign procedure to synthesize a Zn-azolate metal-organic framework (MOF), MFU-4, for NH₃ capture. The surface area and morphology of MFU-4 obtained in alcohol solvents at room temperature is consistent with that of traditionally synthesized MFU-4 in N,N-dimethylformamide at 140 °C. In addition to its large NH₃ uptake capacity at 1 bar (17.7 mmol/g), MFU-4 shows outstanding performance in capturing NH₃ at low concentration (10.8 mmol/g at 0.05 bar). Furthermore, the mild synthetic conditions implemented make it facile to immobilize MFU-4 onto cotton textile fiber. Enhanced NH₃ capture ability of the MFU-4/fiber composite was also attributed to the well-exposed MOF particles. The benign synthetic MFU-4 procedure, high NH₃ uptake, and easy integration onto fiber pave the way toward implementation of similar materials in PPE.