Dynamic Zinc in Liquid Metal Media as a Metal Ion Source for Highly Porous ZIF-8 Synthesis

Abstract

Liquid metals provide new dimensions for controlling and governing of reactions. The concept of freely moving metal solutes in liquid metals can be potentially used for enhancing and tuning interfacial reactions. In this work, zinc (Zn), as the solute metal is shown that, can move to the interface, enriching the interfacial area for the efficient synthesis of highly crystalline and porous zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8). The highest rate of reaction is illustrated, and the best quality ZIF-8, are obtained when a eutectic liquid metal system of Zn with gallium (Ga), containing 3.6 wt.% of Zn, is implemented. It is computationally shown that a combination of Ga activation and freely moving Zn leads to the highest reaction rate and better coordination with organic linkers. The comparisons with solid samples and non-eutectic systems of Ga liquid demonstrate the advantages of eutectic mix. The work can be expanded to a variety of future interfacial reactions of zeolite imidazole frameworks for commercial scale up.