Zhang Zhenjie research group and collaborator of Nankai University: successfully constructed a kind of self-healing super crosslinked polymer metal organic cages (hcmops) composite membrane

Membrane materials have been listed in the "13th five year plan" special project of new materials, which is a national key development field At present, most of the commercialized membrane products are made of organic polymers, which usually have the disadvantages of poor mechanical properties, Trade-off effect and single function The advantages of inorganic materials provide a good way to solve the problems of traditional membrane materials However, the problem of weak binding force between fillers and polymers has been reported in the organic-inorganic mixed matrix membrane, which leads to the leakage of the membrane in some application scenarios Metal organic cages (MOPs) have good solubility, abundant active organic sites and metal sites, which are expected to enhance the binding force between mops and polymers through chemical bond This method can not only overcome the shortcomings of the mixed matrix membrane method, but also retain the characteristics of the polymer chain itself (such as flexibility, processability, etc.), and obtain many unique functions (such as high strength, selectivity, etc.) At present, the reports on chemical bonding of MOPs- polymers are very limited Most of the obtained materials are in powder or gel state, which limits their application fields Therefore, it is urgent for researchers to develop new strategies to prepare new and multifunctional polymer mops composite membranes (source: J am Chem SOC.) recently, Zhang Zhenjie, researcher of School of chemistry, Nankai University, cooperated with Professor Michael J zaworotko of Limerick University and researcher Chen Yao, researcher of National Key Laboratory of pharmaceutical chemistry and biology, proposed the concept of hypercrosslinked mops (hcmops) for the first time, and successfully prepared a new type of polymer -The metal organic cage composite membrane, that is, soluble mops as comonomer participate in the polymerization reaction, and mops as a high connection node endows the membrane material with excellent performance The composite membrane inherits the advantages of mops (such as cationic properties and permanent porosity) and polymers (such as self-healing ability, antibacterial activity, high water flux and good processability) The mechanical properties and selective separation properties of the membrane materials can be significantly improved by introducing mops into the polymer The self-healing performance and antibacterial activity also further expand the potential use of hcmops membrane (such as killing pathogens and improving the durability of the membrane, etc.), which is expected to be used in the treatment of pathogen pollution in water resources Hcmops membrane not only overcomes the trade off effect of traditional mixed matrix membrane, but also presents a new method for the preparation of polymer mops composite membrane This method is also suitable for other soluble porous materials and other polymer matrix, which provides a new direction for the development of mops and membrane materials (source: J am Chem SOC.) this work was recently published in J am Chem SOC (DOI: 10.1021 / JACS 9b05155) The first author of this paper is Liu Jinjin, a second-year master student in the school of chemistry, Nankai University The corresponding authors are Zhang Zhenjie, researcher of School of chemistry, Nankai University, Michael J zaworotko, Professor of Limerick University and Chen Yao, researcher of School of pharmacy, Nankai University Thanks to NSFC youth program and Tianjin Key Natural Science Foundation for their support.