Desalination through reverse osmosis (RO) membrane is one of the most popular ways. However, conventional RO membranes meet a trade-off between salt rejection and water flux which limit their comprehensive performance. In this work, sulfonated zirconium (IV)-carboxylate metal–organic framework (MOF) material UiO-66-SO₃H was successfully synthesized, and thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) with UiO-66-SO₃H-incorporated polyamide (PA) layer was fabricated. Angstrom-sized UiO-66-X ion transport channels with different functional groups in TFN membranes change the membrane morphology and chemistry and accelerate the penetration of water molecules while maintaining the high ion screening effect. As a result, compared to the pristine TFC membrane, the optimized TFN-UiO-66-SO₃H membrane exhibited an increase in water molecules permeability to 347% and still maintained a salt rejection with ~ 94.7% under 2000 ppm NaCl solution with reverse osmosis (RO) mode, leading to a great improvement of intrinsic separation properties. The improved performance was owing to the size exclusion effect and hydrophilic nature of UiO-66-SO₃H particles. What is more, the additional water migration channels through the incorporated UiO-66-SO₃H nanoparticles lead to a boosting water permeation and show optimized performance for desalination.

Graphical abstract

中文翻译：

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含磺化UiO-66材料的海水淡化用薄膜复合膜

通过反渗透 (RO) 膜进行脱盐是最流行的方法之一。然而，传统反渗透膜在脱盐率和水通量之间存在权衡，限制了其综合性能。本工作成功合成了磺化锆(IV)-羧酸盐金属-有机骨架(MOF)材料UiO-66-SO _{3 H，并制备了UiO-66-SO 3} H掺入聚酰胺的薄膜纳米复合材料(TFN) ( PA）层被制造出来。TFN 膜中具有不同官能团的埃级 UiO-66-X 离子传输通道改变了膜的形态和化学性质，加速了水分子的渗透，同时保持了高离子筛选效果。因此，与原始 TFC 膜相比，优化后的 TFN-UiO-66-SO ₃H 膜的水分子渗透率增加到 347%，并且在 2000 ppm NaCl 溶液和反渗透 (RO) 模式下仍然保持约 94.7% 的脱盐率，从而大大提高了固有的分离性能。_{改进的性能归因于UiO-66-SO 3} H颗粒的尺寸排阻效应和亲水性。_{更重要的是，通过掺入的 UiO-66-SO 3} H 纳米粒子的额外水迁移通道导致促进水渗透并显示优化的脱盐性能。

图形概要