CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

MetalOrganic Frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as high surface area chemicalversatile adsorbents with high ordered crystalline structures able toovercome the performances of classic adsorbent materials over organicand inorganic pollutants capture [1]. Regarding the metal ionrevalorization from polluted or mining wastewater sources, severalstudies have revealed the MOFs capacity to capture low concentratedmetal ions/radioactive isotopes from complex multi-element solutions,even with the presence of competing ions at high concentrations [2].Inthis work, we have and are currently exploring the potential of MOFemerging technology. Indeed, selecting several micro/mesoporous MOFadsorbents, we have decorated them with natural amino-acids motifs,shifting their adsorption affinity towards metal ions with differentacidity strength. [2] Despite the promising initial results obtainedin slight acidic solutions, the low chemical stability of the naturalamino-acids groups at acidic conditions (pH< 4) induce theirrelease from the porous framework, and hence, the loss of themetal-ion specificity of the designed adsorbent. To overcome thisissue, a new functionalization path based on phosphonate andsulfonate groups is currently being applied to MOF materials, whichwill enable the application of these materials in highly acidicconditions, such as bio-leachates or mining/industrial acid watersources, avoiding any metal ion specificity loss during theadsorption process.p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; direction: ltr; color: #000000; line-height: 115%; orphans: 2; widows: 2 }p.western { font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-GB }p.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt }p.ctl { font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; so-language: ar-SA }a:link { color: #0563c1 }