The rapid development of the lithium battery industry has significantly increased the demand for lithium resources. While abundant lithium exists in salt‐lake brines, its efficient extraction remains challenging, highlighting the need for highly selective adsorbents. Herein, a stable zirconium‐based metal‐organic framework (Zr‐MOF) was utilized as a platform to construct an adsorbent for Li + by incorporating 4′‐carboxybenzo‐12‐crown‐4 (CE) onto Zr 6 O 8 cluster via ligand exchange. Zr‐MOF not only provides abundant anchor sites for CE molecules but also creates efficient mass transport channels. The resulting CE@Zr‐MOF exhibits excellent Li + adsorption capacity, reaching up to 33.6 mg g −1 , and maintains high selectivity even in the presence of elevated concentrations of competing ions. Mechanistic studies reveal that the well‐defined cavities of CE offer ideal binding sites for Li + , while steric hindrance reduces the affinity for interfering ions, thus enhancing selectivity. Moreover, Zr‐MOF not only serves as a carrier but also enhances the adsorption capacity of CE through charge interactions. This work provides a rational design strategy for developing high‐performance MOF‐based adsorbents for lithium extraction.
Lu et al. (Fri,) studied this question.