Facile synthesis of Al-fumarate metal-organic framework nano-flakes and their highly selective adsorption of volatile organic compounds

In this letter, Al-fumarate metal-organic framework (MOF) nano-flakes were synthesized and volatile organic compounds adsorption performance of this nanomaterial was investigated. The adsorption equilibria results indicated that dichloromethane (DCM) was preferentially adsorbed over trichloromethane (TCM). Moreover, we used ideal-adsorbed solution theory (IAST) method to predict the binary adsorption selectivity performance. It showed a high adsorption selectivity molar ratio about 20.0 towards an equimolar mixture of DCM/TCM vapors at 298 K on this solid, which was much higher than that of HKUST-1 and IRMOF-3 (2.17 and 5.62, respectively). This study indicates the potential use of Al-fumarate nano-flakes in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) recovery by selective adsorption.