Porous Metal Organic Sulfide Gel for Efficient Iodine Adsorption

Porous framework adsorbent materials have aroused great attention for the potential administration of nuclear radioiodine waste in recent years. However, versatile framework materials (metal organic framework, covalent organic framework, etc.) were usually obtained in the form of crystalline powder, which lacked certain flexibility common in their amorphous counterparts such as chalcogels and could pose hindrance for certain applications. Here, we report a porous metal organic sulfide gel (MOSG) that could be directly obtained by connecting molybdenum sulfur clusters with organic linkers, inheriting merits from both an amorphous chalcogel and crystalline MOF. The facilely synthesized MOSG featured well-defined molybdenum sulfur clusters within a long-range disordered framework. Furthermore, the MOSG could be transformed into an aerogel by supercritical carbon dioxide drying. It was demonstrated the MOSG aerogel was leveraged to adsorb iodine from cyclohexane (1650 mg g–1) and water (2790 mg g–1) and could also work in a static state (3350 mg g–1), respectively. Notably, the MOSG holds promise even in dynamic conditions from the breakthrough experiment. Accordingly, the MOSG could be leveraged as a promising platform for more practical applications in the future.