TY - JOUR A1 - Rodríguez-Sánchez, Noelia A1 - Bhattacharya, Biswajit A1 - Emmerling, Franziska A1 - Prinz, Carsten A1 - Prieto-Laria, P. A1 - Ruiz-Salvador, A.R. A1 - Ballesteros, M. T1 - Engineering a multivariate cobalt metal–organic framework for high photocatalytic activity: the impact of mixed ligands and metal incorporation in a visible light-driven heterogeneous photo-Fenton reaction for water treatment N2 - Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted increasing attention for the removal of organic pollutants in wastewater via photocatalysis. Here, we design a multivariate modification of ZIF-9 to tune its electronic properties for use in visible light photocatalysis. A controllable synthesis of ZIF-9 and its multivariate forms with the incorporation of copper and the 2-imidazolecarboxaldehyde (ica) ligand was carried out. The materials are tested for the removal of the model dye methylene blue (MB) by a heterogeneous photo-Fenton-like reaction at neutral pH and room temperature. Cu-ZIF-9-ica (UPO-3) shows high photocatalytic activity under both visible and ultraviolet A (UVA) light, achieving 94% MB degradation in 45 min, compared to 65% MB degradation in 120 min using bare ZIF-9. The study revealed a first-order rate constant of 0.0475 min−1 for Cu-ZIF-9-ica compared to 0.0088 min−1 for ZIF-9 under visible light. The improvement of the catalyst was clearly attributed to the co-incorporation of Cu and the ica ligand in the MOF, which reduces the band gap, in agreement with DFT calculations. Reproducibility and recyclability tests proved that Cu-ZIF-9-ica can be used for at least 3 cycles without a significant loss of efficiency, making it a promising material for the study and application of wastewater treatment. KW - Metal-Organic Framework (MOF) KW - Heterogeneous photo-Fenton KW - ZIF-9 KW - Methylene Blue PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-630797 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/d4na00954a SN - 2516-0230 VL - 7 IS - 8 SP - 2255 EP - 2265 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry AN - OPUS4-63079 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -