Metal organic framework-integrated chitosan/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) nanofibrous membrane hybrids from green process for selective CO2 capture and filtration

Chitosan nanofibers are promising template for development of metal organic frameworks (MOFs) nanofibrous membranes because of their high surface area with abundance of functional groups for cationic/anionic binding. In this study, Cu-BTC-integrated chitosan/PVA nanofibrous membrane (Cu-BTC/CNFs) hybrids are successfully prepared by layer-by-layer depositing Cu2+ as metal cluster and BTC as organic precursor to form Cu-BTC MOF particles on the nanofiber surface. Our study shows that the specific surface area and pore size distribution of the Cu-BTC/CNFs can be controlled by changing the order of precursors mixing. By immersing chitosan/PVA nanofibrous membranes (CNFs) in the metal solution prior to the organic solution, the CNFs/Cu/BTC-3 shows an improvement of similar to 11 times for the specific surface area, compared to the neat CNFs and development of the micropores in the range of 0.6-0.8 nm. The CNFs/Cu/BTC-3 with adsorption capacity of CO2/N-2 over 14 times has a great potential for selective CO2 capturing and filtration. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.