The recently developed metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are emerged as a new kind of porous crystalline materials with uniform pore structure. This fascinating class of hybrid materials, which are formed by association of organic metal centers and organic linker(s) by covalent bonds or ionic bonds, offer wide applications in gas adsorption and storage, molecular separation, catalysis, photoelectricity and sensor.

Due to their good adsorption affinities, high specific surface area, exceptional thermal and chemical stability, the synthesis and application of MOF membranes have attracted intense interest, and recently become a hot topic in gas-separation membranes. However, it is still rather challenged to develop MOF membranes with high gas separation performances since the heterogeneous nucleation and growth of MOF crystals on porous supports surface is very poor.

Recently, inspired by the bio-adhesive ability of the marine mussel, a research group led by Professor Aisheng Huang from Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology & Engineering of Chinese Academy Of Sciences, has developed a simple, versatile and powerful synthesis strategy to prepare highly permselective ZIF-8 molecular sieve membranes based on a polydopamine reaction platform. This highly permselective and hydrothermally stable ZIF-8 membranes are of promising for hydrogen purification and separation.

This work has been published as communication on Journal of the American Chemical Society (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2013, 135: 17679–17682, DOI: 10.1021/ja4080562).

Fig. 1 Reaction mechanism for dopamine polymerization (a), Scheme of preparation of ZIF-8 membranes based on the polydopamine (PDA) reaction platform (b).

Fig. 2 Single gas permeances of different gases through the ZIF-8 membrane prepared on PDA-modified Al2O3 disk at 150 ºC as a function of their kinetic diameter-the inset gives the mixture separation factors.

Prof. Aisheng Huang  huangash@nimte.ac.cn

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