Hydroxide ion-conducting metal-organic frameworks for anion-exchange membrane applications

Abstract

With the increasing demand for green energy, there is a great urgency to develop perm-selective, economical and robust membranes for applications in fuel cells. Metal–organic frameworks are attractive materials for this application as they are typically electrically insulating, have tuneable pore size and chemistry – enabling the realisation of specific interactions with the ions -, and their processing technology has recently undergone a tremendous development, allowing for their synthesis as free-standing membranes. This critical review aims at evaluating recent advances in the field of hydroxide-ion conducting metal–organic frameworks for ion-exchange membrane applications. In addition, it will conceptualise the most promising approaches for design, synthesis and processing of the framework-based membranes.