Drinking water contaminated with heavy metals is a serious problem worldwide; existing purification methods cannot often address this issue quickly and economically. This has sparked our interest in the exploration of metal−organic frameworks (MOFs) for water purification technologies. The attraction to deploy MOFs in water purification is due to their easy chemical tunability allowing their internal surface to be decorated with high densities of metal scavenging functionality. Recently, we used a cheap, environmentally friendly MOF template, Fe-BTC, to introduce extrinsic porosity to a series of polymers that contain high densities of Lewis base functionalities such as amines, hydroxyls, and thiols. This functionality not only promotes the rapid extraction of metals from a variety of complex solutions (in a matter of seconds), but also provides a pathway to adhere the polymer onto the internal MOF surface. The latter inhibits the dispersion of the hydrophilic polymer into water and hence, easy separation post-water treatment. In this presentation, we will show examples of several MOF/Polymer composites and demonstrate their application in the removal of heavy metals and precious metals from several highly complex, real world water samples.<br/>

Rapid removal of metals from complex water mixtures with MOF/Polymer composites

2019 Spring National Meeting

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