Defects help nanomaterial soak up more pollutant in less time

In a study in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, Rice University researchers Michael Wong, Chelsea Clark and colleagues showed that a highly porous, Swiss cheese-like nanomaterial called a metal-organic framework (MOF) was faster at soaking up PFOS from polluted water, and that it could hold more PFOS, when additional nanometer-sized holes (“defects”) were built into the MOF.

Mike Wong and Chelsea Clark. Photo by Jeff Fitlow