Adsorbents for hydrogen-bond accepting hazardous chemicals by post-synthetic modification of UiO-66-NH.

Adsorbents for hydrogen-bond accepting chemicals such as organophosphates are developed by post-synthetically modifying UiO-66-NH through two analogous condensation reactions to incorporate hydrogen-bond donating adsorbent groups. When benzaldehydes are employed as coupling partners, the resulting imine-functionalized MOFs show improvements in uptake capacity with increasingly electron-deficient adsorbent groups. By contrast, when the coupling partners are benzoic acids, the resulting amide-functionalized MOFs exhibit improvements in uptake capacity with increasingly electron-rich adsorbent groups. Both modification approaches also increase binding affinity for organophosphates relative to unmodified UiO-66-NH, demonstrating successful modification of the MOF scaffold to create adsorbents for hazardous chemicals.