Casting and recycling of insoluble, labile single-crystal coordination polymer through reversible solid-liquid-solid transition

摘要

Reversible solid-liquid-solid transition controlled by temperature or solvent plays a vital role in manufacturing and recycling many impor-tant materials. However, this kind of transition is hard to be realized for insoluble and labile materials, for instance coordination polymers. In this work, we introduce a volatile dissociating agent to realize reversible liquification and solidification of a kind of coordination poly-mer, Prussian blue. The Prussian blue powders are disassociated into electrolytic solution by hydrochloride acid (the volatile dissociating agent) and transformed back to solids via volatilization of the hydro-chloride vapor. Using this solid-liquid-solid transition, Prussian blue powders are cast into single crystals with various shapes (i.e., inverse opal, mesoporous) or single-crystal matrix composites with functional networks encapsulated (i.e., carbon, silicon, TiO2). Significant improve-ments of the performance of Prussian blue in secondary battery, seawater battery, water treatment, etc., are observed after casting. Moreover, all of the cast Prussian blue materials can be recycled.

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