Uniform Growth of Nanocrystalline ZIF‐8 on Cellulose Nanocrystals: Useful Template for Microporous Organic Polymers

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF‐8) nanocrystals were uniformly grown on the surface of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) to give a hybrid material, ZIF@CNCs. By varying the stoichiometry of the components, it was possible to control the size of the ZIF‐8 crystals grown on the CNC surface. Optimized ZIF@CNC ( ZIF@CNC‐2 ) was used as a template to synthesize a microporous organic polymer (MOP), ZIF@MOP@CNC . After etching the ZIF‐8 with 6 M HCl solution, a MOP material with encapsulated CNCs ( MOP@CNC ) was formed. Zinc coordination into the porphyrin unit of the MOP yielded the ship‐in‐a‐bottle structure, Zn MOP@CNC , comprised of CNCs encapsulated within the Zn‐MOP. In comparison to ZIF@CNC‐2 , Zn MOP@CNC showed better catalytic activity and chemical stability for CO 2 fixation, converting epichlorohydrin to chloroethylene carbonate. This work demonstrates a novel approach to create porous materials through CNC templating.