Abstract
Monovalent cation permselective membranes (MCPMs) are highly desirable
for the extraction of Li+ and Na+
ions from earth-abundant sources, such as salt lakes and seawater.
Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are promising functional nanomaterials
with excellent potential for ion separation technologies owing to their
regular structure and tunable pore sizes. However, the successful use of
MOFs in ion separation membranes is still challenging owing to the
numerous difficulties in preparing ultrathin and defect-free MOF
membranes. Here, we proposed a facile post-synthetic method for the
preparation of UiO-66(Zr/Ti)-NH2 and subsequently
immobilized UiO-66(Zr/Ti)-NH2 in an ultrathin polyamide
layer (~100 nm). The resulting thin-film nanocomposite
membranes presented high monovalent cation permeation and excellent
selectivity for mono-/di-valent cations. The
PNa+/Mg2+ and
PLi+/Mg2+
permselectivities of the best-performing thin-film nanocomposite
membrane were 13.44 and 11.38, respectively, which were 3.8 and 5.1
times higher, respectively, than those of the commercial state-of-art
CSO membrane.