Recent advances in aluminium-based metal-organic frameworks (MOF) and its membrane applications

Aluminium-based metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are considered as one of the most promising MOFs which have been widely investigated because of their excellent framework stability. In addition, aluminium is a relatively cheap and abundant metal source compared to others, making it as an attractive metal source for mass production of the MOFs. Because of some promising properties of the aluminium-based MOFs, they have also been fabricated to membranes for advanced molecular separations. This article intends to give a comprehensive review starting from the state-of-the-art of general MOF materials with specific emphasis on aluminium-based MOFs, followed by the membranes and its applications in fluid separation. The most-promising and well-studied aluminium MOFs families from MIL (Materials Institute Lavoisier) and CAU (Christian-Albrechts-University) class are first reviewed. The discussion includes their basic properties and some examples of applications. This is then followed by discussions on the common and novel strategies to turn them into membranes with various pathways. Afterwards, various applications of aluminium-based MOF membranes are discussed. Finally, the outlook both from the MOF and membranes perspectives is also discussed which could aid to direct the future research in this field.