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Updated: Aug 26, 2025

Electrophoretic Crystallization of Ultrathin High-performance Metal-organic Framework Membranes
Published on: August 16, 2018
High-Efficiency CO2 /N2 Separation Enabled by Rotation of Electrostatically Anchored Flexible Ligands in
Kai Qu1, Kang Huang2, Jipeng Xu1
1State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, No.130 Meilong Road, Shanghai, 200237, China.
Abstract:
Metal organic frameworks (MOF) are of great potential for molecular separation, but the ligand rotation flexibility makes them remain challenging in the construction of fixed nanochannels for precise sieving. Here we report an electrostatic-anchoring strategy to fix the rotation of 2-methylimidazole (2-MIM) ligand in ZIF-8. Electrostatic inducer trifluoroacetate anchored at and blocked the six-membered windows of ZIF-8, and meanwhile induced the positive 2-MIM rotated from initial 49° to 68°, thus opening neighbored four-membered windows with a constant size of 3.4 Å. The obtained ZIF-8 significantly enhanced the CO2 /N2 adsorption selectivity from 14.02 to 332.86. Further membrane-based separation exhibited an outstanding CO2 /N2 selectivity of up to 137 with a desired permeability of 286 Barrer, which exceeded the 2019 upper bound. This strategy provides a new inspiration for fixing the ligand rotation in soft MOF for desired precise molecular sieving.
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