Sustainable production and applications of metal-organic frameworks

Abstract

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have become the hot-spot functional materials and undergone rapid development throughout extensive fields in 21st century. However, the scalable applications of MOFs are still constrained by high production cost at the front end. And the reuse of spent MOFs is also lack of systematic discussions. Encouragingly, increasing number of studies have been focusing on low-cost production and recycling of MOFs-based materials, providing feasible solutions for resource recovery and reduction. To stimulate future enthusiasm and interest on realizing the blue economy of MOFs ranging from the front-end production to the terminal disposal, we presented and summarized the state-of-the-art progresses on MOFs’ sustainable synthesis, separation, and reuse. Based on the existing challenges, we also proposed the fit-for-purpose future directions of MOFs for stepping toward blue economy.