The additive manufacturing (3D printing) of porous materials will open unprecedented opportunities to design advanced supports for analytical sample preparation and separation. We have fabricated a reactive ZnO nanoparticle (NP)/thermoplastic composite filament for 3D printing via fused deposition modeling. This composite material contains a 10 wt% ZnO-NPs blended with the thermoplastic acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). After 3D printing with the ZnO-NP/ABS filament, porous crystals of the zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) are grown in-situ on the 3D printed devices. The in-situ ZIF-8 growth is carried out under mild conditions at room temperature, converting the embedded ZnO nanoparticles into ZIF-8 crystals directly grown on the surface of the 3D printed device. The resulting ZIF-8@ZnO-NP/ABS 3D printed delivered superior adsorption performance for the dye malachite green compared with an identical device made of pure ABS, or the precursor ZnO-NP/ABS 3D printable material. For comparison purposes, a ZIF-8/ABS filament was fabricated with a load of 10 wt% of pre-synthesized ZIF-8 crystals. The in-situ ZIF-8 growth approach showed enhanced extraction performance in comparison with materials directly loaded with ZIF-8 crystals, with an increase of 48% in the extraction of malachite green. This is the first example of metal oxide nanoparticle to metal-organic framework conversion on 3D printed devices.

Reactive 3D printable material enabling in situ growth of metal-organic frameworks

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.