Synthesis of Zn-based metal-organic frameworks in ionic liquid microemulsions at room temperature.

For the first time, Zn-metal-organic frameworks (Zn-MOFs) were prepared using Zn and the aromatic ligand 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid (BTC) in ionic liquid microemulsions stabilized by the surfactant TX-100. This proposed environmentally friendly approach to synthesize Zn-MOFs is simple, requires no energy input, and operates at room temperature. The synthesized Zn-MOFs were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), single crystal X-ray diffraction and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR).