Flexible and Porous Nanocellulose Aerogels with High Loadings of Metal-Organic-Framework Particles for Separations Applications

He Zhu; Xuan Yang; Emily D Cranston; Shiping Zhu

doi:10.1002/adma.201601351

Flexible and Porous Nanocellulose Aerogels with High Loadings of Metal-Organic-Framework Particles for Separations Applications

Adv Mater. 2016 Sep;28(35):7652-7. doi: 10.1002/adma.201601351. Epub 2016 Jun 30.

Authors

He Zhu¹, Xuan Yang¹, Emily D Cranston², Shiping Zhu³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4L7, Canada.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4L7, Canada. ecranst@mcmaster.ca.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4L7, Canada. zhuship@mcmaster.ca.

PMID: 27357736
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201601351

Abstract

Flexible and porous aerogels are obtained by combining functional metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and structural cellulose nanocrystals via a straightforward water-based sol-gel process, followed by freeze-drying. The aerogels have a hierarchical porous structure with controllable MOF loading up to 50 wt%. These hybrid materials can be used as absorbents for water purification.

Keywords: aerogels; cellulose nanocrystals; metal-organic frameworks; porous materials; water purification.