Rice engineers demonstrate versatile, cost-effective way to make high-quality advanced materials.
Rice engineers demonstrate versatile, cost-effective way to make high-quality advanced materials.
Rice University engineers have developed an innovative way to make covalent organic frameworks (COFs), special materials that can be used to trap gases, filter water and speed up chemical reactions. COFs have the potential to address significant environmental challenges, including energy storage and pollution control. An example of that is their potential use in the decontamination of “forever chemicals” or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Rice chemical engineer Rafael Verduzco and his team have described a new way to synthesize high-quality COFs at low cost and with high throughput in a study published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces that will be featured on the front cover of a future issue of the journal. The work includes a careful analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of different synthesis methods and details a versatile, cost-effective way to make COFs. This involves a multiflow microreactor and careful calibration of the input-output process.
“We built a small, continuous production system ⎯ like a minifactory on a lab bench ⎯ where the ingredients for COFs are mixed and reacted in a steady stream instead of all at once in a big container,” said Safiya Khalil, a Rice doctoral alumna who is the first author on the study.
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Image: Safiya Khalil (Credit: Courtesy of Safiya Khalil/Rice University)
