Phosphate-based fertilizers are in widespread use around the world to increase agricultural yields in areas that would otherwise be unable to sustain food production. While phosphorus is an essential resource for agricultural production its excessive accumulation can cause overgrowth of harmful algal blooms that can affect water quality, leading to eutrophication. Most of the traditional materials that can absorb phosphates and neutralize organophosphates suffer from limited specificity and low removal efficiency. This presentation will describe the use of cerium-based microporous materials that have exceptional stability, high surface area, and the ability to bind to phosphates and organophosphate pesticides in water. We have used cerium-based metal organic framework (Ce 1,4-benzenedicarboxylate) as a high capacity sorbent for phosphate removal from eutrophic waters due to the high binding affinity of phosphate at the MOF's defect sites. Experimental results show a fast phosphate removal, within 4 min with a maximum adsorption capacity of 179 mg.g-1, outperforming other porous materials. This MOF can also be used to neutralize the nerve agent paraoxon and it showed significantly enhanced degradation ability when cerium nanoparticles are encapsulated inside the MOF.

Ultra-fast removal of phosphate from eutrophic waters using cerium-based metal-organic framework

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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