The research proves that the integration of tannic acid-modified ZIF-8 into reverse osmosis membranes leads to a significant increase in permeability and improves salt retention.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are widely employed in designing nanocomposite membranes owing to their excellent performance and diversity. However, their inherent hydrophobicity limits their application in nanocomposite membranes. In order to improve the hydrophilicity of zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8), tannic acid (TA) was utilized to etch-modify it, resulting in a TA-ZIF-8 nanostructure with a hydrophilic shell. TA-ZIF-8 was subsequently introduced into the aqueous phase and used to prepare a nanocomposite matrix reverse osmosis membrane through interfacial polymerization (IP).