Metal Organic Framework (MOF)/Wood Derived Multi-cylinders High-Power 3D Reactor

3D monolithic reactor has shown great promise for varied heterogeneous catalysis reactions including water treatment, energy generation and storage, and clean fuel production. As a natural porous material, macroporous wood is regarded as an excellent support for inorganic catalyst due to its abundant polar functional groups and channels. On the other hand, a metal organic framework (MOF) has been widely used as heterogeneous catalyst due to its high specific surface area and large amount of microporosities. Combining macroporous wood and a microporous MOF is expected to produce a high-performance 3D reactor and is demonstrated here for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. The carbonized MOF/wood reactor retains the original cellular structure with over 180 000 channels/cm2. When being decorated with hexagonal-shaped core–shell Co@C nanoparticles aggregates derived from Co-MOF, the MOF/wood reactor resembles a multi-cylinders reactor for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. Because of the unique combination of macro- and microporous hierarchical structure, the 3D MOF/wood reactor demonstrates exceptional performance under high gas hourly space velocity (81.2% CO conversion and 48.5% C5+ selectivity at 50 L·h–1·gcat–1 GHSV). This validates that MOF/wood can serve as a multi-cylinders and high-power reactor for catalytic reactions, which is expected to be applicable for environmental and energy applications.