Introduction

This invention relates to a new water-stable family of multivariate (MTV)  metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for the simultaneous capture of inorganic (heavy metal ions ) and organic contaminants (drugs, food additives and artificial sweeteners, agricultural and industrial products and organic dyes) from water in a very fast, effective, selective, and synergistic manner.

Technical features

The MTV-MOFs presented in this invention are constituted by two different precursors derived from two natural amino acids with different residues functionalized with oxamate ligands. These MTV-MOFs in a single step can capture inorganic and organic contaminants present in water. The efficiency of the materials presented in this invention is based on the careful design of the materials, which allows to organize with precision in the channels of the MOF different residues capable of interacting with both types of contaminants. These precursors are synthesised by using natural aminoacid of different nature. Depending on aminoacid used the different residues, pointing towards pores, make these materials as perfect bivalent adsorbent for the simultaneous capture of both inorganic and organic contaminants commonly found in wastewaters using MOFs technologies.

Possible Applications

• Water recycling plants from the industry (pharmaceutical, textile, food, leather, plastics, chrome, mining, printing, paper mills, pigments);
• Quality testing of drinking water;
• Domestic use;
• Farms.

Advantages

• MTV-MOFs could be used for the removal of all sorts of pollutants from water resources at once;
• Considerable reduction in the economic and time costs of the treatment protocols;
• These materials are cheap and their production is easily scalable to kilograms;
• These MTV-MOFs are reusable.