Exploring the Potential of Defective UiO-66 as Reverse Osmosis Membranes for Desalination
Journal
Journal of Physical Chemistry C
Journal Volume
123
Journal Issue
26
Pages
16118-16126
Date Issued
2019
Author(s)
Abstract
Defects in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) can play an important role in the development of MOFs as promising reverse osmosis (RO) membranes for water desalination. By employing molecular dynamics techniques, we explore the effects of experimentally relevant defects in UiO-66 on their desalination performance. Different defect types with varying densities and chemical compensations are studied. Our results show that defective membranes can possess substantially improved water permeability and an enhanced water intrusion rate by orders of magnitude compared to the defect-free one while still maintaining an excellent ability to reject salts. Further, the relationship between adsorption energetics and transport kinetics of water is established to shed light on the permeation behaviors of MOF membranes at an atomic scale. The outcomes of this work suggest that controlling structural defects provides opportunities toward the optimization of MOFs as RO membranes for reduced energy and cost requirements in desalination. ? 2019 American Chemical Society.
Subjects
Crystalline materials
Defects
Desalination
Molecular dynamics
Organometallics
Reverse osmosis
Water filtration
Adsorption energetics
Defects in metals
Molecular dynamics techniques
Orders of magnitude
Permeation behavior
Structural defect
Water desalination
Water permeability
Osmosis membranes
Type
journal article