The Effects of Functional Groups and Missing Linkers on the Adsorption Capacity of Aromatic Hydrocarbons in UiO-66 Thin Films

The adsorption of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene isomers, also known as BTEX, from the gas phase into porous thin films of the metal–organic framework UiO-66-X, where X = H, NH<sub>2</sub>, and NO<sub>2</sub>, was measured to quantify adsorption capacity. The thin...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jennifer Shankwitz, Daniel Speed, Dillon Sinanan, Greg Szulczewski
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-12-01
Series:Inorganics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6740/9/1/1
Description
Summary:The adsorption of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene isomers, also known as BTEX, from the gas phase into porous thin films of the metal–organic framework UiO-66-X, where X = H, NH<sub>2</sub>, and NO<sub>2</sub>, was measured to quantify adsorption capacity. The thin films were grown by a vapor-conversion method onto Au-coated quartz microbalance crystals. The MOF thin films were characterized by IR and Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The thin films were activated by heating under high vacuum and exposed to each gas to calculate the Henry’s constant. The results demonstrate that the functional groups in the organic linker and missing-linkers both play important roles in the adsorption capacity. Several trends can be observed in the data. First, all the compounds in the BTEX family have lower Henry’s constants in the UiO-66-H films compared to the UiO-66-NH<sub>2</sub> and UiO-66-NO<sub>2</sub> films, which can largely be attributed to the absence of a functional group on the linker. Second, at 25 °C, the Henry’s constants for all the BTEX compounds in UiO-66-NO<sub>2</sub> films are larger than UiO-66-NH<sub>2</sub> films. Third, the role of missing linkers is addressed by comparing the measured adsorption capacity to ideal pore filling. The results show that the UiO-66-H films are the most defect-free and the UiO-66-NO<sub>2</sub> films have the most missing linker defects.
ISSN:2304-6740