Optimizing Toxic Chemical Removal through Defect-Induced UiO-66-NH₂ Metal–Organic Framework

For the first time, an increasing number of defects were introduced to the metal–organic framework UiO-66-NH₂ in an attempt to understand the structure–activity trade-offs associated with toxic chemical removal. It was found that an optimum exists with moderate defects for toxic chemicals that react with the linker, whereas those that require hydrolysis at the secondary building unit performed better when more defects were introduced. The insights obtained through this work highlight the ability to dial-in appropriate material formulations, even within the same parent metal–organic framework, allowing for trade-offs between reaction efficiency and mass transfer.