In situ Growth of UiO-66 with Its Particle Size Reduced by 90% into Porous Polyacrylate: Experiments and Applications

Abstract

In this study, we successfully synthesized a novel composite material UiO-66/polyacrylate (UiO/PA) by suspension polymerization and in situ growth of metal−organic frameworks (MOFs). Due to the control of heterogeneous nucleation and firm growth, nano-UiO-66 with a diameter of only 400 nm has been reduced by about 90%, resulting in lower transfer resistance, effective separation of photogenerated carriers, and more catalytic active sites exposed. Under visible light irradiation, UiO/PA with 48.7% loading can almost completely degrade rhodamine B (RhB) in 120 min and the corresponding degradation rate constant of RhB reached 0.0203 min −1 from 0 min −1 . After easy filtration and five cycles, the degradation rate is still above 85%. This study can provide new insights into effectively improving the photocatalytic performance of MOFs.

Surface Modification of UiO-66 on Hollow Fibre Membrane for Membrane Distillation

“…Based on these images for membranes S1–S5 ( Figure 4 ), the average particle size of UiO-66 obtained on the top of AHF ranged from 50 to 60 nm. Compared to the standard size of UiO-66 particles (200–500 nm) synthesised by hydrothermal [ 29 , 43 , 44 ], a smaller size of particles was obtained in this study. This shows that the pre-seeding treatment of ZrO 2 using the sol–gel Pechini method enables a reduction in UiO-66 particle size.…”