Non-selective Defect Minimization towards Highly Efficient Metal-Organic Framework Membranes for Gas Separation.

The persistence of defects in polycrystalline membranes poses a substantial obstacle to reaching the theoretical molecular sieving separation and scaling up production. The low membrane selectivity in most reported literature is largely due to the unavoidable non-selective defects during synthesis, leading to a mismatch between the well-defined pore structure of polycrystalline molecular sieve materials. This paper presents a novel approach for minimizing non-selective defects in metal-organic framework (MOF) membranes by a constricted crystal growth strategy in a confined environment.

Rational Designing Microenvironment of Gas-Diffusion Electrodes via Microgel-Augmented CO Availability for High-Rate and Selective CO Electroreduction to Ethylene.

Efficient electrochemical CO reduction reaction (CORR) requires advanced gas-diffusion electrodes (GDEs) with tunned microenvironment to overcome low CO availability in the vicinity of catalyst layer. Herein, for the first time, pyridine-containing microgels-augmented CO availability is presented in CuO-based GDE for high-rate CO reduction to ethylene, owing to the presence of CO-phil microgels with amine moieties. Microgels as three-dimensional polymer networks act as CO micro-reservoirs to engineer the GDE microenvironment and boost local CO availability.