Hydrotalcite-assisted rapid synthesis of HKUST-1 toward efficient benzene capture

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have been recognized as one of the major environmental hazards in the air. Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) and their associated materials have offered an excellent strategy for the adsorption removal of VOCs. In this work, we develop a facile and rapid synthesis method of HKUST-1, a typical and ideal Cu-based MOF, for VOC adsorption by using hydrotalcite as the intermediate for efficient crystallization at room temperature. The results show that HKUST-1 can be successfully synthesized within 10 s at room temperature. The as-synthesized HKUST-1 has a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area of 2170.7 m2 g−1 and a total pore volume of 0.977 cm3 g−1, which are among the highest reported values for such material. When tested for its benzene adsorption performance, the material can achieve a saturated adsorption capacity of 7.3 mmol g−1 at 35 °C. Based on the temperature-programmed desorption result, it is shown that the activation energy for the benzene desorption is 68.23 kJ mol−1. The material can demonstrate a relatively constant saturated adsorption capacity after several adsorption/desorption cycles, which indicates good regenerative performance.