Cellulose Nanocrystal Composite Membrane Enhanced with In Situ Grown Metal–Organic Frameworks for Osmotic Energy Conversion

Access to clean and renewable energy, osmotic energy from salinity gradient difference, for example, is central to the sustainability of human civilization. Despite numerous examples of nanofluidic membranes for osmotic energy conversion, one produced from abundant and renewable biomass resources remains largely unexplored. In this work, cotton-derived cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are employed to fabricate a membrane by self-assembly with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and subsequent in situ growth of metal-organic framework (MOF), UiO-66-(COOH)