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Abstract Membrane technology is an energy-efficient approach for purification of wastewater. In this work, for the first time, a novel pure zeolite imidazolate framework-300 (ZIF-300) MOF membrane was fabricated and applied for removing heavy metal ions from wastewater. The fine structure of ZIF-300 layer was characterized by positron annihilation spectroscopy technique. Cross-flow and long-term operation test was also carried out to investigate the membrane stability. The obtained ZIF-300 membrane exhibited a high and stable performance with the water permeance of 39.2 L/m2 h bar and rejection rate of 99.21% for CuSO 4. This high separation performance combined the extraordinary stability demonstrated that the as-prepared pure ZIF-300 MOF membrane could be a potential candidate for the water treatment. Highlights • A novel pure ZIF-300 MOF membrane is synthesized. • Positron annihilation spectroscopy is used to probe the membrane pore structure. • ZIF-300 membrane exhibited an excellent performance for removing heavy metal ions from wastewater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by fast and selective water transport in natural Aquaporin (AQP), imidazole-quartet water channels (IQWC) constructed by imidazole-ureido (IU) molecular scaffolds, are excellent candidates to design membranes with fast and selective water transport properties. In this work, a water binding IU bola-amphiphile-imidazole compound was embedded with the hydrophilic and laminated graphene oxide (GO) to prepare IU-GO membrane. H NMR, TG, XRD, SEM, AFM and FTIR were conducted to characterize physicochemical properties of IU and IU-GO membrane. It was demonstrated that IU could well interact with GO to generate a robust membrane structure. The resulting IU-GO membranes were applied for pervaporation dehydration of n -butanol-water. The total flux and the separation factor of the optimized IU-GO membrane were 3506 g·m-2·h-1 and 4454 respectively when the membrane was measured at 343 K with butanol content of 80 wt%. Furthermore, the membrane exhibited good stability and separation performance during 120 h continuous operation test, showing great potential in application of solvent dehydration. • Imidazole-ureido (IU) was embedded into graphene oxide (GO) laminate. • IU-GO membrane was applied for n -butanol dehydration via pervaporation. • The membrane exhibited high flux and separation factor for n -butanol dehydration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]