Chem
ArticleMultivariable Sieving and Hierarchical Recognition for Organic Toxics in Nonhomogeneous Channel of MOFs
The Bigger Picture
Effective molecular sieves are imperative for the selective separation of toxics and have similar properties in chemistry and environmental protection. However, multivariable recognition is still a great challenge for current porous sieves because they can recognize organics on the basis of only two variables (charge and size) in water. Here, we present a hierarchical recognition strategy based on a series of heterogeneous metal-organic frameworks. Our work can not only accomplish charge- and size-based separation of charged dye mixtures by charge recognition and size sieving but also realize the isolation of a wider range of challenging toxics, such as persistent organic pollutants and pesticides, by various non-covalent interactions in heterogeneous channels. In addition, this hierarchical recognition strategy can expand the application of current molecular sieves and indicate directions for the design of biomimetic sorbents with heterogeneous channels.