Recently, under the guidance of associate professor Li Jiang and professor Deng Juanli, Li Huitong, a postgraduate student of our college, published a paper ''Regulating positively charged MOF-303 membranes for enhanced ion selectivity '' in the international journal ' Chemical Engineering Journal ' ( Top Journal of the 1st District of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, IF 13.4 ) in the field of materials science.
The function of mimicking biological nanochannels to regulate transport behavior is the ultimate goal of artificial ion channels, which is mainly attributed to the finely arranged charged residues inside the channels. However, there is still a lack of effective means to precisely control the surface charge in the channel. Here, inspired by the biological ion channel, the research team proposed a charge modification strategy, which constructs a strong positive electric environment by anchoring the cation to the charge locking site on the channel wall, thus strongly rejecting the cation with high charge valence. The difference of transport energy barrier between monovalent and divalent cations is enlarged, and the selectivity of the membrane is improved. This study provides a new idea for the preparation of charge-adjustable MOF membranes with excellent separation performance.
Paper information:Huitong Li, Peixian Su, Haoran Fan, Jiachen Liu, Boyu Xin, Tongdan Chen, Gaofeng Zhong, Jingle Xie, Jiang Li*, Juanli Deng, Zhaohui Zhou*. Regulating positively charged MOF-303 membranes for enhanced ion selectivity. Chem. Eng. J. 2025, 517, 164373.
Paper link:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2025.164373
