AVS 66th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Thin Films Division Tuesday Sessions
       Session TF-TuA

Paper TF-TuA9
A Kinetic and Thermodynamic Study of Aromatic Compounds Interacting with Metal-Organic Framework Thin Films

Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 5:00 pm, Room A122-123

Session: Emerging Applications for Thin Films
Presenter: Greg Szulczewski, University of Alabama
Authors: J. Shankwitz, University of Alabama
D. Speed, University of Alabama
D. Sinanan, University of Alabama
G.J. Szulczewski, University of Alabama
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Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of highly porous materials that can be synthesized using a variety of inorganic nodes and organic linkers, which enables MOFs for emerging application in gas sensing, gas storage and gas separations. In this talk, we will describe the synthesis of MOF thin films of the UiO-66-X type, where X = H, NH2 and NO2 grown on Au-coated Si wafers and Au-coated quartz microbalance crystals using a vapor-assisted conversion method. The thin films were characterized by XPS, XRD, RAIRS and SEM. The thin films were activated by heating under high vacuum and exposed to a saturation pressure of benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene isomers (BTEX family) while recording the frequency change of the crystal at different temperatures. The Sauerbrey equation was used to convert the frequency change to accumulated mass, followed by calculation of the Henry's constant at each temperature for the BTEX family of compounds. The results show that UiO-66-NO2 had the highest affinity for all of the aromatic compounds studied. In addition, the kinetics of adsorption have been modeling by a Fickian diffusion process to estimate the diffusion coefficients of the molecules in the MOFs.