A mesoporous cationic thorium-organic framework that rapidly traps anionic persistent organic pollutants.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 29116079.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-017-01208-w and PMC identifier 5677036.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Many environmental pollutants inherently exist in their anionic forms and are therefore highly mobile in natural water systems. Cationic framework materials that can capture those pollutants are highly desirable but scarcely reported. Here we present a mesoporous cationic thorium-based MOF (SCU-8) containing channels with a large inner diameter of 2.2 nm and possessing a high surface area of 1360 m<sup>2</sup> g<sup>-1</sup>. The anion-exchange properties of SCU-8 were explored with many anions including small oxo anions like ReO<sub>4</sub><sup>-</sup> and Cr<sub>2</sub>O<sub>7</sub><sup>2-</sup> as well as anionic organic dyes like methyl blue and the persistent organic pollutant, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS). Both fast uptake kinetics and great sorption selectivity toward PFOS are observed. The underlying sorption mechanism was probed using quantum mechanical and molecular dynamics simulations. These computational results reveal that PFOS anions are immobilized in SCU-8 by driving forces including electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic interactions, and van der Waals interactions at different adsorption stages.