Detecting the invisible: MOFs that concentrate the pollutants in a sample

Many pollutants are present in water or the environment in amounts so small that not even the best instruments detect them directly. The trick of analytical chemistry is to concentrate them first.

In this work we used a very well-known MOF, ZIF-8, as an extraction material. It works like a selective sponge: it captures the molecules we are interested in —in this case compounds called benzomercaptans— and separates them from the rest of the sample.

Once concentrated, we analysed them with a separation technique (high-performance liquid chromatography, HPLC) that can indeed measure them accurately.

It is a good reminder that MOFs are not only for cleaning: they are also powerful tools to measure and monitor water quality.