Yingying Zhua, Hongyu Lan, Panpan He, Xiangwei Zhu, Jiang Gong, Zhiyue Dong*, Minghua Zeng*. 

Hybrid membranes of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks with cagelike pores for solar steam evaporation. 

Materials Advances (2023) Accept. Link & PDF

Zeolitic Imidazolate Frameworks (ZIFs) are widely studied for selective transport of small molecules with their designable channels and cage-like pores. Herein, we design a solar-thermal hybrid membrane ZCP-20 (ZIF-8/CNTs@PCMVIMBr-20), where ZIF-8 is used as water transmission channel. The ZIF-8 was integrated with self-crosslinking PCMVIMBr (poly[1-cyanomethyl-3-vinylimidazolium bromide]), where its imidazole coordinate with Zn ions to give a mechanically robust membrane. The hydrophobic channels of ZIF-8 enable the formation of discrete water clusters. Differential scanning calorimetry and dark water evaporation rate evaluation indicate that the water evaporation enthalpy in ZCP-20 membrane is 1.00 kJ g^-1. Consequently, the ZCP-20 membrane exhibits a high evaporation rate of 2.48 kg m^-2 h^-1 under one sun irradiation and displays stable evaporation rates for 20 h. Remarkably, the ZCP-20 membrane can tolerate various water sources (e.g., dye-polluted water) or even strongly acidic (pH=1) or basic (pH=13) solution