TY - JOUR
T1 - Preparation of nanoporous graphene oxide by nanocrystal-masked etching
T2 - Toward a nacre-mimetic metal-organic framework molecular sieving membrane
AU - Hu, Yaoxin
AU - Wu, Yueqin
AU - Devendran, Citsabehsan
AU - Wei, Jing
AU - Liang, Yan
AU - Matsukata, Masahiko
AU - Shen, Wei
AU - Neild, Adrian
AU - Huang, Han
AU - Wang, Huanting
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported by the Australian Research Council (DP170102964). The authors thank the staff of the Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy for their technical assistance with SEM and Ranwen Ou for the assistance of contact angle characterization at Monash University. The authors gratefully acknowledge Jean-Pirerre Veder, Jin Zhang and San Ping Jiang at Curtin University, Australia for XPS characterization in the WA X-Ray Surface Analysis Facility funded by the Australian Research Council LIEF grant LE120100026.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Ultrathin and robust metal-organic framework (MOF) molecular sieving membranes with high-flux and high-selectivity have shown great potential for low-energy gas separation. Here we report a controllable MOF nanocrystal-masked plasma etching method for forming evenly distributed mesopores on graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets. The resulting mesoporous GO/MOF nanosheets are used to synthesize an ultrathin polycrystalline MOF membrane with well-aligned mesoporous GO (MGO) nanosheets via a nacre-mimetic "assembly-and-intergrowth" approach. This is achieved by assembling the two-dimensional (2D) porous materials (e.g. hybrid MOF/MGO nanosheets) into a laminate scaffold matrix, followed by the intergrowth of MOF crystals into this matrix. Such an approach enables the realization of homogeneous dispersion and alignment, strong interfacial binding, and interpenetration of porous GO nanosheets within the ultrathin MOF polycrystalline layer. In particular, this layered MOF/MGO membrane displays the improvement of the homogeneity in mechanical deformation and fracture resistance as compared to the polycrystalline MOF membrane, as shown by nanoindentation tests. In addition, the obtained MOF membrane with an ultrathin thickness of 430 nm shows excellent hydrogen separation performance (H2/C3H8 selectivity as high as 2409 with H2 permeances of 1.17 × 10-6 mol m-2 s-1 Pa-1). Such a simple etching and bioinspired growth strategy could be potentially employed to produce other nanoporous 2D materials and nacre-mimetic polycrystalline films with unique properties for a range of advanced separation applications.
AB - Ultrathin and robust metal-organic framework (MOF) molecular sieving membranes with high-flux and high-selectivity have shown great potential for low-energy gas separation. Here we report a controllable MOF nanocrystal-masked plasma etching method for forming evenly distributed mesopores on graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets. The resulting mesoporous GO/MOF nanosheets are used to synthesize an ultrathin polycrystalline MOF membrane with well-aligned mesoporous GO (MGO) nanosheets via a nacre-mimetic "assembly-and-intergrowth" approach. This is achieved by assembling the two-dimensional (2D) porous materials (e.g. hybrid MOF/MGO nanosheets) into a laminate scaffold matrix, followed by the intergrowth of MOF crystals into this matrix. Such an approach enables the realization of homogeneous dispersion and alignment, strong interfacial binding, and interpenetration of porous GO nanosheets within the ultrathin MOF polycrystalline layer. In particular, this layered MOF/MGO membrane displays the improvement of the homogeneity in mechanical deformation and fracture resistance as compared to the polycrystalline MOF membrane, as shown by nanoindentation tests. In addition, the obtained MOF membrane with an ultrathin thickness of 430 nm shows excellent hydrogen separation performance (H2/C3H8 selectivity as high as 2409 with H2 permeances of 1.17 × 10-6 mol m-2 s-1 Pa-1). Such a simple etching and bioinspired growth strategy could be potentially employed to produce other nanoporous 2D materials and nacre-mimetic polycrystalline films with unique properties for a range of advanced separation applications.
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U2 - 10.1039/c7ta00927e
DO - 10.1039/c7ta00927e
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85027116228
VL - 5
SP - 16255
EP - 16262
JO - Journal of Materials Chemistry A
JF - Journal of Materials Chemistry A
SN - 2050-7488
IS - 31
ER -