Synthesis of uniform-sized and microporous MIL-125(Ti) to boost arsenic removal by chemical adsorption

Abstract The adsorption behavior of arsenic on adsorbent have been researched widely, but chemical adsorption of arsenic is uncommon. In this work, a kind of microporous metal-organic framework (MIL-125(Ti)) with columnar morphology and uniform size was solvothermally synthesized, and its chemical adsorption behavior and mechanism of arsenic were firstly investigated by experimental and simulation study. Remarkably, ultra-fast adsorption behavior and excellent arsenic removal capability was achieved. It takes only 20 min to rapidly remove 5 mg L-1 arsenic with 0.2 g L-1 MIL-125(Ti), which is far superior to the previously reported materials. Both experimental and simulation study results show that the adsorption of arsenic obeys a new chemical adsorption mechanism. Both As(III) and As(V) can easily replace the terephthalic acid ligand via competitive coordination and bind to the Ti active site of MIL-125(Ti). In addition, the reaction energy barriers for ligand substitution by H2O, As(III) and As(V) are 0.46, 0.33 and 0.15 eV, respectively, which further confirming that structure reforming of MIL-125(Ti) plays a key role for chemical adsorption. The study solves the difficulty of removing low concentration of arsenic and provides molecular-level understanding of the chemical adsorption mechanism of arsenic on MIL-125(Ti).