FURI | Fall 2020

Dye Filtration of Electrospun MOF Fibers

The objective of this research is to demonstrate the effect of polymer type on the filtration properties of electrospun MOF fibers. HKUST-1 and UiO-66 are both ultraporous metal-organic frameworks with known dye filtration properties which will be electrospun with the polymers polystyrene, polyvinyl alcohol, and polyvinylpyrrolidone to compare their effectiveness at the dye filtration of methylene blue. A layer of these composite fibers will be used for filtration and fluorescence spectrometry will be used to qualitatively measure filtration performance. Future work will explore additional MOF and polymer combinations to establish a relationship between molecular structures and filtration performance of composite electrospun fibers.