Towards Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) Active Fabrics: In–situ Growth of HKUST-1 MOF in Electrospun Fibers Oriented Mats

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are highly porous synthetic materials, which are made of metallic ions interconnected with organic ligands. MOFs exhibit exceptional surface to volume ratio, variable pores sizes, and selective binding through chemical modification of the organic ligands.

In this work, we demonstrate the fabrication of freestanding copper benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylate MOF (HKUST-1) composites microfibers fabric. HKUST-1 fibers are obtained via co-hydrodynamic electrospinning of polymer solutions that contain MOF precursors. The obtained fibers are then used as micro-reactors for the in-situ growth of MOF crystals upon exposure to ethanol vapor. The resulting fibers contain 30% submicron crystalline HKUST-1 by weight, whose is confirmed by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. The MOF fibers obtained using this method can reach lengths of several meters, and exhibit good mechanical properties that allow weaving them into flexible and durable mats and textiles.

The MOFs embedded fibers, demonstrated in this work, hold promise for different applications including adsorption of hazardous gasses, separation of specific chemical species, selective catalysis, and sensing, and pave the way to new and improved performance fabrics and active membranes.