Issue 32, 2022

Modular assembly of MOF-derived carbon nanofibers into macroarchitectures for water treatment

Abstract

The organized assembly of nanoparticles into complex macroarchitectures opens up a promising pathway to create functional materials. Here, we demonstrate a scalable strategy to fabricate macroarchitectures with high compressibility and elasticity from hollow particle-based carbon nanofibers. This strategy causes zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8)-polyacrylonitrile nanofibers to assemble into centimetre-sized aerogels (ZIF-8/NFAs) with expected shapes and tunable functions on a large scale. On further carbonization of ZIF-8/NFAs, ZIF-8 nanoparticles are transformed into a hollow structure to form the carbon nanofiber aerogels (CNFAs). The resulting CNFAs integrate the properties of zero-dimensional hollow structures, one-dimensional nanofibers, and three-dimensional carbon aerogels, and exhibit a low density of 7.32 mg cm−3, high mechanical strength (rapid recovery from 80% strain), outstanding adsorption capacity, and excellent photo-thermal conversion potential. These results provide a platform for the future development of macroarchitectured assemblies from nanometres to centimetres and facilitate the design of multifunctional materials.

Graphical abstract: Modular assembly of MOF-derived carbon nanofibers into macroarchitectures for water treatment

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
11 May 2022
Accepted
12 Jul 2022
First published
25 Jul 2022
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., 2022,13, 9159-9164

Modular assembly of MOF-derived carbon nanofibers into macroarchitectures for water treatment

Z. Zhang, C. Wang, Y. Yao, H. Zhang, J. Na, Y. Zhou, Z. Zhu, J. Qi, M. Eguchi, Y. Yamauchi and J. Li, Chem. Sci., 2022, 13, 9159 DOI: 10.1039/D2SC02619H

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