Al-fumarate metal-organic frameworks adsorbent for removal of organic compound and gas storage

Abstract Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted a great amount of attention due to their unique properties, including high porosity, large surface area, and flexible frameworks. These special properties are desirable in many applications such as adsorption, catalysis, drug delivery, and gas storage. Herein, Al-fumarate MOFs were synthesised from the reaction of aluminium sulphate with fumaric acid at 65 °C for 1 h. X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2-adsorption, scanning electronic microscope (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and UV–vis spectrometer were used to characterise the physicochemical properties of the prepared adsorbent materials. The obtained results indicated that the Al-fumarate MOFs possess good water stability and can adsorb/remove over 70% of Rose Bengal under UV–light irradiation. Gas adsorption/storage experiments revealed that Al-fumarate MOFs also exhibited high CO2 and CH4 uptakes of ∼59 cm3 g−1 and 17 cm3 g−1 at 303 K and ∼805 Torr (∼1 bar), respectively. The synthesised Al-fumarate MOFs obtained both excellent photocatalytic activity and high gas adsorption/storage that are due to the large surface area (∼1100 m2 g)−1 and high porosity (0.65 cm3 g)−1. Thus, these Al-fumarate MOFs are very promising in the fields of photocatalysis for wastewater treatment and of gas adsorption/storage.