Tailoring Zr-based metal organic frameworks by decorating UIO-66 with amino group for adsorption removal of perfluorooctanoic acid from water

TL;DR

This study enhances Zr-based MOFs by decorating UiO-66 with amino groups and GO to improve hydrophobic interactions, significantly increasing PFOA adsorption capacity for water purification.

Contribution

It introduces a novel amino group decoration on Zr-based MOFs to improve hydrophobicity and adsorption efficiency for removing persistent organic pollutants like PFOA.

Findings

Maximum adsorption capacity reached 1653 mg/g

Amino group decoration enlarged pore size and increased hydrophobic effects

Modified MOFs showed improved removal efficiency for PFOA

Abstract

As a persistent pollutant, PFOA places a serious threat to natural ecosystems and human health for its global distribution and residual. Currently, adsorption technology is a promising approach for PFOA removal. MOFs become a concerned adsorbent attributing to its special designability and easy modular synthesis. Aiming at improving hydrophobic interactions to absorb PFOA, this study was designed to introduce amino group to decorate Zr-based MOF UiO-66. And subsequently introduced GO to modify UiO-66-NH2 to explore the influence of hydrophobicity on PFOA adsorption removal. Based on the performance of the characterization of synthesized products, the adsorption removal effect of PFOA and the corresponding adsorption mechanism were discussed. The results indicate the introduction of the amino group could enlarge the pore size, but also display strong hydrophobic effects, significantly enhance the adsorption capacity(maximum capacity was 1653mg/g). This work not only provides the method of introducing amino group to Zr-based MOFs to strengthen the hydrophobic properties in purpose of removing PFOA efficiently, but also proposes the feasible the reference for tailoring MOFs to remove endurable organic pollutants in water.