Abstract
Water-stable zirconium metal-organic frameworks (Zr-MOFs) such as the UiO-66 series have been recently identified as promising materials for polycrystalline membranes. However, the reliance of such membranes on rigid and expensive ceramic substrates with low packing density has greatly limited their wider applications. Herein, we report polycrystalline UiO-66(Zr)–NH2 membranes grown on cheap and flexible carbon cloth by in situ solvothermal synthesis. The membranes possess sub-micron thicknesses with a certain flexibility and angular bend tolerance up to 10°. In addition, these membranes exhibit great separation performance in organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) because of their excellent solvent resistance, with above 99.8% dye rejection and high flux for dichloromethane (ca. 0.17 kg m−2 h−1 bar−1). Our study paves the way toward the development of polycrystalline Zr-MOF membranes for challenging liquid separations.
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•Continuous polycrystalline UiO-66(Zr)-NH2 membranes were successfully prepared on cheap and flexible carbon cloth.•The membranes possess sub-micron thicknesses (0.8 μm) with a certain flexibility and angular bend tolerance up to 10°.•Excellent stability and separation performance were obtained in both aqueous and organic solvent-based liquid separations.•Postsynthetic defect healing was conducted to reduce the linker-missing defects and reinstate sieving-based separations.