Room temperature synthesis of monolithic MIL-100(Fe) in aqueous solution for energy-efficient removal and recovery of aromatic volatile organic compounds

Xianming Zheng; Sadia Rehman; Pengyi Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129998

Room temperature synthesis of monolithic MIL-100(Fe) in aqueous solution for energy-efficient removal and recovery of aromatic volatile organic compounds

J Hazard Mater. 2023 Jan 15:442:129998. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129998. Epub 2022 Sep 16.

Authors

Xianming Zheng¹, Sadia Rehman², Pengyi Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes, School of Environment and Engineering, Tiangong University, Tianjin 300387, China; School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tiangong University, Tianjin 300387, China.
² State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
³ 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: 36152540
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129998

Abstract

The removal and recovery of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are widely used in many industrials. Unfortunately, most conventional porous materials not only have low VOCs uptake, but also need to be regenerated at relatively high temperature. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have great potential for the removal and recovery of VOCs as their record-breaking gas adsorption capacity, easy regeneration, tunable pore structure and functional groups. Whereas, powdered MOFs are hardly implemented in industrial fields owing to their low bulk density and high pressure drop. Exploring a green method to prepare granular MOFs for the removal and recovery of VOCs is still a challenge. Herein, we report the room temperature green synthesis of a stable Fe-based MOF monolith by using water as the solvent without applying high pressure and chemical binders. The static and dynamic experiments show that the optimized centimeter-scale monolith has high porosity and mechanical strength, and exhibits much better adsorption performance for representative aromatic VOCs (benzene, toluene and p-xylene), than commercial activated carbon and activated carbon fiber under the same conditions. Remarkably, as-synthesized monolith can be rapidly regenerated at lower temperature. These results clearly demonstrate the advantages of MOF monoliths in removing and recovering VOCs, and also provide new insight into the effects of drying temperature, washing and centrifugation procedures on MOF shaping.

Keywords: Adsorption; Energy-efficient; Metal-organic monoliths; VOCs.