Time-efficient atmospheric water harvesting using Fluorophenyl oligomer incorporated MOFs
Min Kang, Incheol Heo, Sun Ho Park, Jinhee Bae, Sangyeop Kim, Gyuchan Kim, Byung‐Hyun Kim, Nak Cheon Jeong, Won Cheol Yoo
Abstract
Adsorption-based atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) has the potential to address water scarcity in arid regions. However, developing adsorbents that effectively capture water at a low relative humidity (RH < 30%) and release it with minimal energy consumption remains a challenge. Herein, we report a fluorophenyl oligomer (FO)-incorporated metal-organic framework (MOF), HKUST-1 (FO@HK), which exhibits fast adsorption kinetics at low RH levels and facile desorption by sunlight. The incorporated fluorophenyl undergoes vapor-phase polymerization at the metal center to generate fluorophenyl oligomers that enhance the hydrolytic stability of FO@HK while preserving its characteristic water sorption behavior. The FO@HK exhibited vapor sorption rates of 8.04 and 11.76 L kg−1MOF h−1 at 20 and 30% RH, respectively, which are better than the state-of-the-art AWH sorbents. Outdoor tests using a solar-driven large-scale AWH device demonstrate that the sorbent can harvest 264.8 mL of water at a rate of 2.62 L kg−1MOF per day. This study provides a ubiquitous strategy for transforming water-sensitive MOFs into AWH sorbents. In arid regions, effective atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) is essential. The fluorophenyl oligomer (FO)-incorporated HKUST-1 (FO@HK) shows impressive performance. F3@HK achieves up to 11.76 L kg−1MOF h−1 at 30% RH and can harvest 2.62 L kg−1MOF of water daily with solar energy.