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The crystal quality of Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTSSe) thin film is crucially important to the high-performance CZTSSe solar cell. After the selenization, a bi-layer CZTSSe thin film consisting of a large-...

Phase and porosity control in titanium dioxide (TiO2) is essential for the optimization of its photocatalytic activity. However, concurrent control over these two parameters remains challenging. Here, a novel metal-organic framework templating strategy is demonstrated for the preparation of highly microporous anatase TiO2. In situ encapsulation of Ti precursor in ZIF-8 cavities, followed by hydrolysis and etching, produces anatase TiO2 with a high Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area of 335 m2·g-1 and a micropore surface area ratio of 48%. Photocatalytic hydrogen generation catalyzed by the porous TiO2 can reach a rate of 2459 μmol·g-1·h-1. The measured photocatalytic activity is found to be positively correlated to the surface area, highlighting the importance of porosity control in heterogeneous photocatalysts.

Microporous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as building materials for molecular sieving membranes offer unique opportunities to tuning the pore size and chemical property. The recently reported polycrystalline Zr-MOF membranes have greatly expanded their applications from gas separation to water treatment. However, Zr-MOFs are notoriously known for their intrinsic defects caused by ligand/cluster missing, which may greatly affect the molecular sieving property of Zr-MOF membranes. Herein, we present the mitigation of ligand-missing defects in polycrystalline UiO-66(Zr)-(OH)2 membranes by postsynthetic defect healing (PSDH), which can help in increasing the membranes’ Na+ rejection rate by 74.9%. Intriguingly, the membranes also exhibit excellent hydrothermal stability in aqueous solutions (>600 h). Our study proves the feasibility of PSDH in improving the performance of polycrystalline Zr-MOF membranes for water-treatment applications.