Facile method to disperse nonporous metal organic frameworks: composite formation with a porous metal organic framework and application in adsorptive desulfurization.

It is generally not easy to utilize nonporous metal organic frameworks (MOFs) with a large crystal size (especially for catalysis or adsorption) because their surface area is low and the majority of the active sites exist inside the MOFs. Composing with porous materials may be one way to disperse the nonporous materials. In this study, a nonporous/nonsoluble MOF (in which the particle size was much larger than the cavity size of the porous MOFs) containing Cu(I) ((Cu2(pyz)2(SO4)(H2O)2)n, denoted as CP) was composed with typical porous MOFs such as MIL100(Fe) (iron-benzenetricarboxylate) and CuBTC (cupper-benzenetricarboxylate). The Cu(I) species of the nonporous MOF was effectively utilized for the adsorptive desulfurization (ADS) of model fuel. Even though the porosities of the composed MOFs decreased as the content of CP increased, the adsorption capacity increased as the content of CP increased (up to a certain content). Considering the negligible capacity of CP for ADS, the enhanced adsorption capacity may be a result of the well-dispersed Cu(I), which is known to be beneficial for ADS via π-complexation. The dispersed CP was also observed by transmission electron microscopy mapping. Therefore, composing a nonporous MOF with porous MOF is a new and facile way to disperse/utilize the active sites of a nonporous MOF.