Environmental Applications of Metal−Organic Frameworks and Derivatives: Recent Advances and Challenges

The consequence of environmental pollution has raised the dire need for the discovery of efficient and potent methods for detection and removal of pollutants released into air and water bodies. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous coordination polymers having intriguing features such as large surface areas, tailorable pore size and highly dense active sites reported for various environmental applications. Recent developments have focused on the modification of MOF structures, development of MOF-based materials including functionalized MOFs, MOF composites/hybrids and MOF derivatives. These modifications confer new and desirable properties over pristine MOFs and consequently lead to enhanced efficiency for pollutant sensing and adsorption applications. This chapter focuses on the recent developments and challenges in the use of MOF-based materials for sensing and adsorption of pollutants from air and water in the past seven years. Some challenges and future prospects are also discussed. In spite of the challenges encountered with the use of MOF-based materials for detection and removal of gaseous and water pollutants, they remain valuable materials for environmental applications.