Improvements to the production of ZIF-94; a case study in MOF scale-up

• Published in: Green chemistry : an international journal and green chemistry resource : GC Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 5665 - 567
• Main Authors: Johnson, Timothy, ozi ska, Magdalena M, Orsi, Angelica F, Wright, Paul A, Hindocha, Sheena, Poulston, Stephen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Royal Society of Chemistry 2019
• Subjects: Carbon dioxide; Commercialization; Green chemistry; Metal-organic frameworks; Synthesis
• ISSN: 1463-9262; 1463-9270
• DOI: 10.1039/c9gc00783k

The ability to produce large scale quantities of MOF materials is essential for the commercialisation of these frameworks to continue. Herein we report how the production of ZIF-94 can be improved from a ∼1 g laboratory preparation to a scalable procedure allowing for large scale production of the desired framework. The synthesis of ZIF-94 was completed at room temperature, atmospheric pressure and without the use of DMF as a solvent. This method offers improvements over the current literature synthesis routes and affords a product at 18 wt% solids. To demonstrate the robustness of the derived methodology a 60 g, large scale, batch of this framework was produced which possessed a surface area of 468 m 2 g −1 . This large scale sample has superior CO 2 uptake of 3.3 mmol g −1 at 1 bar, an improvement of 30% over literature reports. Improving the production of the ZIF-94 framework - aiming to boost safety, reduce environmental impact and cost while maintaining performance.