Newly Emerging Metal–Organic
Frameworks (MOF), MXenes,
and Zeolite Nanosheets in Solutes
Removal from Water
Guo-Rong Xu
Abstract Freshwater crisis is an ever-increasing severe twenty-first-century
problem. Scientists, experts, and engineers are exploring various strategies to meet
the freshwater desire. Membranes with high ion rejections and adsorptive capability
are playing important roles in desalination and/or wastewater treatment. Many 2D
membranes have been demonstrated great potential in water purification, such as
metal–organic frameworks (MOF), MXenes, and zeolite nanosheets. In this chapter,
applications of these 2D nanosheets in desalting and heavy metal ions removal
are discussed from the point of computer simulations, synthesis procedures, and
experimental works.
Keywords Desalination · Pollutants · Two-dimensional nanosheets ·
Metal–organic frameworks · MXene · Zeolites
1 Introduction
Ever-increasing water shortage forces people all over the world to find effective
ways for water purification including disinfection, decontamination, reclamation,
and desalination. Desalination has developed into the most efficacious strategy and
has been widely used globally. Meanwhile, wastewater treatments, such as municipal
and industrial wastewater reclamation draw more and more attention in recent years
[1]. The specific character of desalination and wastewater treatment is that they do
not consume hydrological water resource. Accordingly, there is an important need
to develop efficient and sustainable technologies to realize freshwater augmentation
without consuming hydrological water cycle. Materials play vital roles in this aspect
of fabricating new technology for efficient water purification [2].
Given the fact that reverse osmosis (RO) desalination has become the most important method in seawater desalination, RO membrane (mainly polyamide thin-film
G.-R. Xu (B)
The Institute of Seawater Desalination and Multipurpose Utilization (ISDMU),
Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), Tianjin 300192, China
e-mail: labxgr@aliyun.com
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Das (ed.), Two-Dimensional (2D) Nanomaterials in Separation Science,
Springer Series on Polymer and Composite Materials,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72457-3_9
219
Frameworks (MOF), MXenes,
and Zeolite Nanosheets in Solutes
Removal from Water
Guo-Rong Xu
Abstract Freshwater crisis is an ever-increasing severe twenty-first-century
problem. Scientists, experts, and engineers are exploring various strategies to meet
the freshwater desire. Membranes with high ion rejections and adsorptive capability
are playing important roles in desalination and/or wastewater treatment. Many 2D
membranes have been demonstrated great potential in water purification, such as
metal–organic frameworks (MOF), MXenes, and zeolite nanosheets. In this chapter,
applications of these 2D nanosheets in desalting and heavy metal ions removal
are discussed from the point of computer simulations, synthesis procedures, and
experimental works.
Keywords Desalination · Pollutants · Two-dimensional nanosheets ·
Metal–organic frameworks · MXene · Zeolites
1 Introduction
Ever-increasing water shortage forces people all over the world to find effective
ways for water purification including disinfection, decontamination, reclamation,
and desalination. Desalination has developed into the most efficacious strategy and
has been widely used globally. Meanwhile, wastewater treatments, such as municipal
and industrial wastewater reclamation draw more and more attention in recent years
[1]. The specific character of desalination and wastewater treatment is that they do
not consume hydrological water resource. Accordingly, there is an important need
to develop efficient and sustainable technologies to realize freshwater augmentation
without consuming hydrological water cycle. Materials play vital roles in this aspect
of fabricating new technology for efficient water purification [2].
Given the fact that reverse osmosis (RO) desalination has become the most important method in seawater desalination, RO membrane (mainly polyamide thin-film
G.-R. Xu (B)
The Institute of Seawater Desalination and Multipurpose Utilization (ISDMU),
Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), Tianjin 300192, China
e-mail: labxgr@aliyun.com
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Das (ed.), Two-Dimensional (2D) Nanomaterials in Separation Science,
Springer Series on Polymer and Composite Materials,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72457-3_9
219