Issue 25, 2018

Adhesive bacterial amyloid nanofiber-mediated growth of metal–organic frameworks on diverse polymeric substrates

Abstract

The development of a simple, robust, and generalizable approach for spatially controlled growth of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) on diverse polymeric substrates is of profound technological significance but remains a major challenge. Here, we reported the use of adhesive bacterial amyloid nanofibers, also known as curli nanofibers (CNFs), major protein components of bacterial biofilms, as universal and chemically/mechanically robust coatings on various polymeric substrates to achieve controlled MOF growth with improved surface coverage up to 100-fold. Notably, owing to the intrinsic adhesive attributes of CNFs, our approach is applicable for MOF growth on both 2D surfaces and 3D objects regardless of their geometric complexity. Applying this technique to membrane fabrication afforded a thin-film composite membrane comprising a 760 ± 80 nm ZIF-8 selective layer grown on a microporous polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) support which exhibited a C3H6/C3H8 mixed-gas separation factor up to 10, C3H6 permeance up to 1110 GPU and operational stability up to 7 days. Our simple yet robust approach therefore provides new insights into designing new interfaces for mediating MOF growth and opens new opportunities for constructing new MOF-based membranes and devices.

Graphical abstract: Adhesive bacterial amyloid nanofiber-mediated growth of metal–organic frameworks on diverse polymeric substrates

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
07 apr 2018
Accepted
24 may 2018
First published
01 iyn 2018
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2018,9, 5672-5678

Adhesive bacterial amyloid nanofiber-mediated growth of metal–organic frameworks on diverse polymeric substrates

C. Zhang, Y. Li, H. Wang, S. He, Y. Xu, C. Zhong and T. Li, Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 5672 DOI: 10.1039/C8SC01591K

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