Rapid, Selective Heavy Metal Removal from Water by a Metal–Organic Framework/Polydopamine Composite

Journal Article · Wed Mar 14 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · ACS Central Science

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.7b00605· OSTI ID:1426013

Sun, Daniel T. ^[1]; Peng, Li ^[1]; Reeder, Washington S. ^[2]; Moosavi, Seyed Mohamad ^[1]; Tiana, Davide ^[1]; Britt, David K. ^[3]; Oveisi, Emad ^[4]; Queen, Wendy L.  ^[1]

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1. Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1051 Sion, Switzerland
2. Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1051 Sion, Switzerland, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States
3. The Molecular Foundry, Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States
4. Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Drinking water contamination with heavy metals, particularly lead, is a persistent problem worldwide with grave public health consequences. Existing purification methods often cannot address this problem quickly and economically. Here we report a cheap, water stable metal–organic framework/polymer composite, Fe-BTC/PDA, that exhibits rapid, selective removal of large quantities of heavy metals, such as Pb²⁺ and Hg²⁺, from real world water samples. In this work, Fe-BTC is treated with dopamine, which undergoes a spontaneous polymerization to polydopamine (PDA) within its pores via the Fe³⁺ open metal sites. The PDA, pinned on the internal MOF surface, gains extrinsic porosity, resulting in a composite that binds up to 1634 mg of Hg²⁺ and 394 mg of Pb²⁺ per gram of composite and removes more than 99.8% of these ions from a 1 ppm solution, yielding drinkable levels in seconds. Further, the composite properties are well-maintained in river and seawater samples spiked with only trace amounts of lead, illustrating unprecedented selectivity. Remarkably, no significant uptake of competing metal ions is observed even when interferents, such as Na⁺, are present at concentrations up to 14 000 times that of Pb²⁺. The material is further shown to be resistant to fouling when tested in high concentrations of common organic interferents, like humic acid, and is fully regenerable over many cycles.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); University of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); German Research Foundation (DFG)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231; PYAPP2_160581; SPP 1570
• OSTI ID: 1426013
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1494086; OSTI ID: 1508765; OSTI ID: 1508766
• Journal Information: ACS Central Science, Journal Name: ACS Central Science Vol. 4 Journal Issue: 3; ISSN 2374-7943
• Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE