Metal-Organic Frameworks and Electrospinning: A Happy Marriage for Wastewater Treatment

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), an emerging class of porous organic-inorganic hybrid materials, have shown great potential for water and wastewater treatment applications. However, pure MOF powders have limited practical applications in water treatment due to their insolubility, poor processability, brittleness, safety hazard from dust formation, and difficult separation from aqueous solutions. Thus, exploring potential MOFs composites with improved separation performance is of great importance. The marriage of MOFs with electrospun nanofiber with forethought into the final product's morphology, structure, and chemistry has opened up new opportunities for efficient wastewater treatment. The present review exhaustively summarizes the strategies to integrate MOFs into nanofibers via electrospinning to remove various pollutants (i.e., organic dyes, heavy metal ions, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, oily compounds, organic solvents, etc.) via adsorption, photodegradation, and membrane filtration. Besides, the most recent advances of electrospun MOF nanofibers for wastewater treatment and their current challenges and future outlook are delineated.