Green synthesis of a hydrophobic metal-organic gel for the capture of trace odorous hexanal from humid air

Sadia Rehman; Xianming Zheng; Pengyi Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129852

Green synthesis of a hydrophobic metal-organic gel for the capture of trace odorous hexanal from humid air

J Hazard Mater. 2023 Jan 5:441:129852. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129852. Epub 2022 Aug 27.

Authors

Sadia Rehman¹, Xianming Zheng¹, Pengyi Zhang²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
² State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Beijing Key Laboratory for Indoor Air Quality Evaluation and Control, Beijing 100084, China. Electronic address: zpy@tsinghua.edu.cn.

PMID: 36063715
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129852

Abstract

The development of superhydrophobic adsorbents for the capture of trace volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from humid indoor air is still a challenge. Herein, we reported the formation of a granular zinc-based metal-organic gel, i.e., ZIF-412(gel) by optimizing the synthesis conditions. The thermally stable xerogel exhibited high surface area (1008 m²/g), hydrophobicity, and viscosity for self-depositing on the substrate such as non-woven fibers. Dynamic adsorption experiments under various humidity conditions demonstrated as-synthesized ZIF-412(gel) owned excellent VOC (hexanal) adsorption performance with adsorption capacity higher than commercial activated carbon and some water-stable MOFs including ZIF-8, ZIF-67, MIL-101(Cr) and ZIF-414. ZIF-412(gel) could be regenerated at temperature as low as 358 K without obvious loss in adsorption capacity. The adsorption mechanism of hexanal over ZIF-412(gel) is also simulated by Grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC).

Keywords: Coating; Indoor air; Non-woven fiber; Xerogel; ZIF-412.