Surface-active nonionic conjugated zirconium metal–organic frameworks and their applications; Broad spectrum anti-microbial, anti-SRB biofilm, anti-microbial corrosion

Abstract

The microbial corrosion caused by microorganisms is a critical issue in the petroleum industry that could have dire environmental and economic consequences. Therefore, the development of innovative nonionic porous antimicrobial materials with diverse hydrophobic conjugated motifs is highly desired. Herein, the preparation, characterization, and bio-interface features of nonionic conjugated zirconium metal–organic frameworks (CP-Zr-MOFs) are presented. The synthesized CP-Zr-MOFs exhibit broad-spectrum antimicrobial efficacy with the lowest minimum inhibitory concentration at only 1.95μg/mL. Most notably, the materials with thieno[3,4-b] thiophene moieties have a particularly high selectivity (>83). Interestingly, the biocompatible CP-Zr-MOFs not only possess intrinsically rapid antimicrobial activities and remarkable anti-SRB biofilm formation capabilities, but also show excellent microbial corrosion inhibition. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy revealed that the charge-transfer resistance (Rct) of carbon steel (CS) coated with CP1-Zr-MOF was 2495 Ω cm2 after immersion in biotic SRB environments for 28 days. This is two orders of magnitude greater than that of uncoated CS (33.2 Ω cm2) and evidential of its excellent corrosion resistance. Moreover, CP1-Zr-MOF, CP2-Zr-MOF, CP3-Zr-MOF, and CP4-Zr-MOF inhibitors showed 98.67, 96.23, 94.66, 98.30 % corrosion inhibition efficiencies after 28 days. The results presented herein confirm that enhancement of the microbial corrosion resistance of CS in the presence of CP-Zr-MOFs may be attributed to their excellent biocompatibility, great surface activity, high porosity, and π-conjugated nature.