Nanoarchitectured porous carbons derived from ZIFs toward highly sensitive and selective QCM sensor for hazardous aromatic vapors

Nagy L Torad; Jeonghun Kim; Minjun Kim; Hyunsoo Lim; Jongbeom Na; Saad M Alshehri; Tansir Ahamad; Yusuke Yamauchi; Miharu Eguchi; Bing Ding; Xiaogang Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124248

Nanoarchitectured porous carbons derived from ZIFs toward highly sensitive and selective QCM sensor for hazardous aromatic vapors

J Hazard Mater. 2021 Mar 5:405:124248. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124248. Epub 2020 Oct 27.

Authors

Nagy L Torad¹, Jeonghun Kim², Minjun Kim³, Hyunsoo Lim³, Jongbeom Na³, Saad M Alshehri⁴, Tansir Ahamad⁴, Yusuke Yamauchi⁵, Miharu Eguchi⁶, Bing Ding⁷, Xiaogang Zhang⁸

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy-Storage Technologies, College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), Nanjing 210016, China; JST-ERATO Yamauchi Materials Space-Tectonics Project and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Ibaraki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan; Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Tanta University, Tanta 31527, Egypt.
² Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-749, Republic of Korea.
³ School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ JST-ERATO Yamauchi Materials Space-Tectonics Project and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Ibaraki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan; School of Chemical Engineering and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia.
⁶ JST-ERATO Yamauchi Materials Space-Tectonics Project and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Ibaraki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan.
⁷ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy-Storage Technologies, College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), Nanjing 210016, China; JST-ERATO Yamauchi Materials Space-Tectonics Project and International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Ibaraki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan.
⁸ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy-Storage Technologies, College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), Nanjing 210016, China. Electronic address: azhangxg@nuaa.edu.cn.

PMID: 33191025
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124248

Abstract

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a versatile source of carbon nanoarchitectures in gas sensing applications (Torad et al., 2019). Herein, several types of nanoporous carbons (NPCs) have been prepared by in-situ carbothermal treatment of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) under different inert atmospheres to achieve a highly sensitive discrimination of vaporized aromatic compounds. In this study, we demonstrate how different carbonization conditions under the flow of N₂ or H₂ gases affect the surface area and the degree of graphitization of the resulting NPCs polyhedrons, and their consequent effect on the sensing performance in terms of sensitivity and selectivity toward toxic volatile hydrocarbons. A growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is observed on the surface of polyhedral NPCs after careful carbonization of ZIF crystals under H₂ atmosphere. The fabricated quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor with CNT-containing NPCs demonstrates increased sensitivity and selectivity towards toxic volatile aromatic hydrocarbons over the aliphatic analogues, suggesting the rich growth of hairy graphitic-like CNTs on the surface of carbon framework act as highly selective sensing antennae for vapor molecular discrimination of toxic aromatic hydrocarbons. Despite of increased selectivity towards volatile aromatic compounds, however, the surface area of CNT-rich NPCs derived from hybrid ZIFs and ZIF-67 is greatly sacrificed as compared to CNT-free NPCs from ZIF-8 polyhedron. In the case of Co-containing ZIF-67, the rich growth of hair-like CNTs, which is induced by the presence of Co, is observed during carbothermal reduction under a flow of H₂ gas, thus allowing ultra-selective detection of aromatic hydrocarbons in the vapor phase, such as benzene (C₆H₆) and toluene (C₆H₅CH₃) over their aliphatic analogue, c-hexane (c-C₆H₁₂) of same molecular mass, size and vapor pressure.

Keywords: Carbon nanoarchitectures; Metal-organic frameworks; Nanoporous carbons (NPCs); Quartz crystal microbalance; Vapor discrimination.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't