Metal-organic frameworks@graphene hybrid aerogels for solid-phase extraction of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and selective enrichment of proteins

Graphene aerogel (GA)-supported metal-organic framework (MOF) particles with a three-dimensional (3D) architecture were fabricated for the first time via a facile template-free sol-cryo method. The prepared MOFs@graphene hybrid aerogels exhibit a 3D interconnected macroporous framework of graphene sheets with uniform dispersion of MOF particles. We also report the first attempt at using the hybrid aerogels as adsorbents for the solid-phase extraction (SPE) of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and the selective enrichment of proteins. The macroporous skeletons of GA provide both low backpressure and rapid mass transfer in SPE application, thus overcoming the obstacle of high backpressure caused by directly packing submicron or micron sized MOF particles into SPE cartridges. Excellent performances including satisfactory recoveries, high sensitivity and good reproducibility were achieved in the extraction of five NSAIDs. The hybrid aerogels also showed an interesting ability for selective enrichment of ribonuclease A (RNase A) and simultaneous exclusion of cytochrome C (Cyt C) and lysozyme (Lyz), which could be attributed to the electrostatic interactions between proteins and the positively charged coordinatively unsaturated metal sites (CUS) in MIL-101. We believe that this work will promote the application of MOFs in adsorption and separation, and our synthetic strategy could be further extended to develop other graphene-based hybrid aerogels.