MOFs to capture heavy metals and recover rare-earth elements (IMAGE)
Caption
(a) Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous materials made by connecting metal-containing units with organic molecules called linkers, creating a net-like structure with a large internal surface area. (b) MOFs contain many accessible sites where heavy metals and rare-earth elements (REEs) can be captured. These metals can be held inside the MOF through physical interactions (physisorption) or (c) stronger chemical interactions (chemisorption). The structure and chemistry of a MOF can also be adjusted to make it more selective, allowing it to capture particular metals even when other ions are present.
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Please credit the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN).
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