Green and rapid synthesis of hierarchical porous zeolitic imidazolate frameworks for enhanced CO2 capture

Abstract Two hierarchical porous zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIF-8 and ZIF-90) were synthesized at room temperature and pressure within 60 s using N , N -diethylethanolamine as template. The resulting ZIF-8 showed hierarchically porous structure with micro-, meso -, and macropores together with excellent thermal stability. Furthermore, the porosity properties can be readily tuned by changing the amount of template. The space–time yield (STY) was as high as 1.59 × 10 4  kg m −3  d −1 , which is higher than any previously reports. The introduced template N , N -diethylethanolamine played two roles during the synthesis: one played a protonation agent role enables the ligands deprotonation, the other played a template role served as structure-directing agents (SDAs) of meso - and macropores. The as-syntehszied hierarchical porous ZIF-8 exhibited enhanced adsorption capacity for CO 2 capture. This work offers a new direction for the facile synthesis of hierarchical porous ZIFs with high STY.