High-Performance Composite Monolith Synthesized via HKUST-1 Stabilized HIPEs and Its Adsorptive Properties

This paper presents a green and facile method for generating a composite monolith. HKUST-1 (Pickering emulsifier) and PVA (co-emulsifier), are used to stabilize supercritical carbon dioxide in water as high internal phase emulsion template to prepare interconnected hydrophilic porous monoliths. The effects of HKUST-1 contents and CO2 densities on the performance of MOF/ polyacrylamide (PAM) polyHIPEs are investigated. The as-synthesized MOF/PAM composites are characterized by FT-IR, SEM, XRD, and TGA. The SEM patterns show that the composites are interconnected, the void sizes are 10-80 mu m, and the interconnected pore throats are approximately 0.5-25 mu m. The rheological and DMA measurement results indicate that the viscoelasticity and mechanical properties of the composites greatly improve after HKUST-1 is embedded. Furthermore, the adsorptive properties of MOF/PAM to bovine serum albumin (BSA) are studied, and the adsorption capacity of MOF/PAM enhances with the increase in HKUST-1 content. The adsorption capacity of the composite with 7 wt% HKUST-1 reached 350.4 mg g(-1) in 1.0 g L-1 BSA solution.