Progress and prospect of adsorptive removal of heavy metal ions from aqueous solution using metal–organic frameworks: A review of studies from the last decade

The efficient removal of heavy metals (HMs) from the environment has become an important issue from both biological and environmental perspectives. Recently, porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), combining central metals and organic ligands, have been proposed as promising materials in the capture of various toxic substances, including HMs, due to their unique characteristics. Here we review recent progress in the field of water remediation from the perspective of primary HMs (including divalent metals and variable-valent metals) in water pollution and the corresponding MOFs (including virgin and modified MOFs, magnetic MOFs composites and so on) that can remove these metals from water. The reported values of various MOFs for adsorption of heavy metal ions were 8.40–313 mg Pb(II) g−1, 0.65–2173 mg Hg(II) g−1, 3.63–145 mg Cd(II) g−1, 14.0–127 mg Cr(III) g−1, 15.4–145 mg Cr(VI) g−1, 49.5–123 mg As(III) g−1, and 12.3–303 mg As(V) g−1. The main adsorption mechanisms associated with these processes are chemical (including coordination interaction, chemical bonding and acid-base interactions) and physical (including electrostatic interaction, diffusion and van der Waals force) adsorption, which were discussed in detailed. Further efforts should be made towards expanding the repertoire of MOFs that effectively remove multiple targeted HMs, as well as exploring possible applications of MOFs in the removal of HMs from non-aqueous environments.