Endless Wonders in Metal-Organic Frameworks

Abstract

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are an important member of porous solids, utilized in numerous applications including energy and environmental sciences. Now approximately 100,000 MOFs have been known for the past two decades. MOF chemists are tacking important challenges, one of which is controlling chemical functionality inside MOFs. In this presentation, I will show delicate positional control of metal substitution and functionalized organic linkers may produce surprising structures and patterns, inaccessible by conventional MOF synthesis. We also demonstrate that metal-organic polyhedral (MOPs), another member of metal-organic materials, can be an ideal platform to control the functionality in the solid state, when the inter-cage interactions are carefully modulated. The ability to regulate the positional order in the solid state may open up new avenues in gas adsorption and other advanced applications for metal-organic materials. The last part of the talk will be dedicated to prediction of future metal-organic materials including MOFs and MOPs.