Ultrathin metal\u2013organic framework membrane production by gel\u2013vapour deposition

Wanbin Li,Zehai Xu,Fei Wang,Huase Ou,Jiaheng Zhang,Pengcheng Su,Zhanjun Li,Guoliang Zhang,Eddy Zeng

doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00544-1

Wanbin Li, Zehai Xu + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00544-1

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Abstract

Ultrathin, molecular sieving membranes composed of microporous materials offer great potential to realize high permeances and selectivities in separation applications, but strategies for their production have remained a challenge. Here we show a route for the scalable production of nanometre-thick metal–organic framework (MOF) molecular sieving membranes, specifically via gel–vapour deposition, which combines sol–gel coating with vapour deposition for solvent-/modification-free and precursor-/time-saving synthesis. The uniform MOF membranes thus prepared have controllable thicknesses, down to ~17 nm, and show one to three orders of magnitude higher gas permeances than those of conventional membranes, up to 215.4 × 10−7 mol m−2 s−1 Pa−1 for H2, and H2/C3H8, CO2/C3H8 and C3H6/C3H8 selectivities of as high as 3,400, 1,030 and 70, respectively. We further demonstrate the in situ scale-up processing of a MOF membrane module (30 polymeric hollow fibres with membrane area of 340 cm2) without deterioration in selectivity.

Highlights

Ultrathin, molecular sieving membranes composed of microporous materials offer great potential to realize high permeances and selectivities in separation applications, but strategies for their production have remained a challenge
Molecular sieving membranes composed of microporous materials, such as carbons[1, 2], zeolites[3, 4] and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs)[5, 6] are tremendously beneficial in permeability and selectivity compared with polymeric membranes
MOF membranes can be prepared with various methods[5, 8], such as hydro/solvothermal synthesis[15,16,17,18], direct crystallization[19,20,21] and interfacial growth[22,23,24], e.g., micrometre-thick MOF membranes were synthesized on hollow fibres via interfacial microfluidic membrane processes[23, 24]

Summary

Introduction

Molecular sieving membranes composed of microporous materials offer great potential to realize high permeances and selectivities in separation applications, but strategies for their production have remained a challenge. We show a route for the scalable production of nanometre-thick metal–organic framework (MOF) molecular sieving membranes, via gel–vapour deposition, which combines sol–gel coating with vapour deposition for solvent-/modification-free and precursor-/time-saving synthesis. MOF membranes can be prepared with various methods[5, 8], such as hydro/solvothermal synthesis[15,16,17,18], direct crystallization[19,20,21] and interfacial growth[22,23,24], e.g., micrometre-thick MOF membranes were synthesized on hollow fibres via interfacial microfluidic membrane processes[23, 24]. We exhibit the utility and distinctive features of GVD by deposition of ZIF-8 on polymeric hollow fibres

Methods

Results

Conclusion