日本ゼオライト学会　刊行物 Publication of Japan Zeolite Association

Zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF), a subfamily of crystalline porous metal organic framework (MOF), has received attention for adsorption/membrane separation applications due to their zeolite-like permanent porosity and tunable uniformly-sized micropores. Although aqueous room temperature synthesis has apparently opened up environmental friendly and efficient ways to synthesize ZIF, it poses challenges for membrane preparation including unavoidable homogeneous nucleation. Many ZIF membranes prepared in an aqueous system are based on conventional secondary seeded growth techniques for zeolite membranes in spite of well-recognizing that the coordination chemistry of ZIF is fundamentally different from the covalent chemistry of zeolites. This review provides an overview of the aqueous synthesis of ZIF-8 with emphasis on the morphology control and discusses recent progress in ZIF membranes and the challenges and opportunities for future membrane separation technology.