Engineering MOF composite particles through microfluidic droplet formation and solvent extraction/evaporation

In this work, a method is proposed to produce monodispersed micron-sized metal-organic-framework (MOF) polymeric composite particles (MOFpp). MOFpp are produced via co-flow microfluidic droplet formation and solvent extraction/evaporation. Disk-shaped MOFpp of 235 µm diameter and 63 µm thickness were obtained from zeolitic imidazole framework-8 (ZIF-8) MOF and polyvinyl-formal dissolved in dichloromethane droplets after solvent extraction/evaporation. The MOFpp were characterized by SEM, XRD, ATR-IR, SEM-EDS, TGA, and gravimetric adsorption experiments. The results demonstrated that the ZIF-8 preserved its structural, chemical, and adsorption properties upon formulation.