Porous and flexible membrane derived from ZIF-8-decorated hyphae for outstanding adsorption of Pb2+ ion

Abstract Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based membranes with superior mechanical properties are of particular interest in purification, separation, and catalysis. Nevertheless, their fabrication still remains a grand challenge. Here, fungus hyphae (Mucor) were used as a robust scaffold to load the MOFs and induced the formation of porous and flexible membranes. ZIF-8 was used as a representative of MOFs. The ZIF-8@Mucor membrane was formed by the in-situ growth of ZIF-8 on hyphae and then a vacuum filtration of the ZIF-8/hyphae composite. ZIF-8 was effectively dispersed on the ZIF-8@Mucor membrane, and the shear modulus of ZIF-8@Mucor-3 was 864 MPa by calculation. The ZIF-8@Mucor membrane exhibited promising properties for adsorption application to remove the highly toxic Pb2+. The adsorption capacity of this membrane was as high as 1443.29 mg/g. Results from dynamic adsorption indicated that the penetration concentration of Pb2+ ions was less than 5% of the original level before 80 minutes whereas after 160 minutes, penetration concentration of Pb2+ ions was more than 90%. This study would open a new way of how to synthesize composite MOFs/bacterial membranes for energy and environment purposes.