Recovery of acetone from aqueous solution by ZIF-7/PDMS mixed matrix membranes

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have exhibited promising applications in gas and liquid separation. As a subclass of MOFs, zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) are attracting more and more interest because of their unique thermal and chemical stability. One of the representative ZIFs, ZIF-7, has super-hydrophobic pores, making it a perfect filler in polymer membranes for recovering acetone from fermentation broths. In this study, mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) based on ZIF-7 and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) were prepared, which display improved acetone-water total flux and separation factors simultaneously compared with a pure PDMS membrane. The separation factor can reach up to 39.1 with a high flux of 1236.8 g m(-2) h(-1) at 333 K, which is the highest value among those reported up to now to the best of our knowledge.