Rapid and Selective Water Remediation Through a Functionalized Pillar's Core of a Novel Metal-Organic Framework

Abstract

Water contamination via poisonous heavy-metal ions, above all Pb2+, has been a great universal concern leading to severe hazards to human health. Today, creating novel adsorbents with the ability to chelate these ions with a high decontamination potential is of great interest. In this work, we targeted the design of a pillar-layered Co-based metal-organic framework (MOF), named TMU-74, with amide functional groups on its pillar backbone to achieve fast, effective, and selective Pb2+ ions removal from contaminated water samples. This structure shows 385.71 mg g(-1) sorption capacities of Pb2+ in 20 min. Moreover, the adsorption data for Pb2+ ion fit well with the Langmuir model. The adsorption kinetics was similarly investigated, and the data are in good agreement with a pseudo-first-order kinetic model. Thermodynamic outcomes also exhibited the endothermic and spontaneous nature of adsorption. This study showed that applying pillars with a free amide core into MOFs can be an easy and useful technique for enhancing the effectiveness of MOFs toward wastewater remediation in comparison to nonpillared structures.