Volume 136, Issue 38 e202409296
Forschungsartikel

Crystalline Porous Organic Cage Membranes Constructed Using Fortified Intermolecular Interactions for Molecular Sieving

Ziye Song

Ziye Song

Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 China

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Linghao Liu

Linghao Liu

Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 China

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Qian Sun

Qian Sun

Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 China

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Jingcheng Du

Jingcheng Du

Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 China

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Jian Guan

Jian Guan

Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 China

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Pengjia Dou

Pengjia Dou

Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 China

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Runnan Zhang

Runnan Zhang

Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Technology, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072 China

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Zhongyi Jiang

Corresponding Author

Zhongyi Jiang

Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Technology, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072 China

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Jiangtao Liu

Corresponding Author

Jiangtao Liu

Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 China

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First published: 25 June 2024

Abstract

Among the various types of materials with intrinsic porosity, porous organic cages (POCs) are distinctive as discrete molecules that possess intrinsic cavities and extrinsic channels capable of facilitating molecular sieving. However, the fabrication of POC membranes remains highly challenging due to the weak noncovalent intermolecular interactions and most reported POCs are powders. In this study, we constructed crystalline free-standing porous organic cage membranes by fortifying intermolecular interactions through the induction of intramolecular hydrogen bonds, which was confirmed by single-crystal X-ray analysis. To elucidate the driving forces behind, a series of terephthaldehyde building blocks containing different substitutions were reacted with flexible triamine under different conditions via interfacial polymerization (IP). Furthermore, density functional theory (DFT) calculations suggest that intramolecular hydrogen bonding can significantly boost the intermolecular interactions. The resulting membranes exhibited fast solvent permeance and high rejection of dyes not only in water, but also in organic solvents. In addition, the membrane demonstrated excellent performance in precise molecular sieving in organic solvents. This work opens an avenue to designing and fabricating free-standing membranes composed of porous organic materials for efficient molecular sieving.

Conflict of Interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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