Cost-Effective Screening of Antimicrobial Performance of Multiple Metal-Organic Frameworks via a Droplet-Based Batch Synthesis Platform

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have recently been widely used in antimicrobial fields due to their adjustable composition and morphology. The inherent properties of MOFs (e.g., their shape, size, and metal element) are highly related to their antibacterial performance. The traditional beaker-based synthesis system to evaluate antibacterial properties of MOFs often leads to high reagent costs and environmental pollution. Here, a low-cost droplet-based microscale synthesis platform for better and economical screening of antimicrobial performance of MOFs is demonstrated. Multiple MOFs (Zn-, Co-, and Cu-MOFs) with controlled morphologies are successfully one-click fabricated through such a droplet-based synthesis platform. Further antimicrobial performance screening (Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli) of the above MOFs indicates that the Co-MOFs show better antibacterial effects than Zn-MOFs and Cu-MOFs. Such integration of droplet array synthesis and screening can greatly reduce the cost and time, especially for parallel experiments, and provide great potential in guiding the large-scale synthesis of high-performance materials.