New Porous Materials

Porous Molecular Materials

Solution-processable porous materials such as porous organic cages (POCs) and metal-organic polyhedra (MOPs) are among research targets within our research laboratory at the University of Adelaide.  These are examples of novel porous materials with potential applications in gas storage, separations and catalysis. An advantage of such materials, by comparison with extended framework materials such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), is their readily solution processibility.

Some recent contributions include:

• Kinetically controlled porosity in a robust organic cage material, Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 2013, 52, 3746-3749.

• Hetero-bimetallic metal-organic polyhedra, Chemical Communications, 2016, 52, 276-279.

• Invited review: Synthesis and applications of porous organic cages, Chemistry Letters, 2015, 44, 5, 582-588.

Metal-organic Frameworks

Our work on MOFs relies heavily on developing new ligand systems to prepare novel MOF materials and careful manipulation of the structures of existing MOF materials through linker modifications and metal node replacements.

MOF Synthesis

In this area we have undertaken the development of a new group of azolium-containing materials that are important precursors to N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) containing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), the synthesis of MOFs from diol containing biphenylcarboxylate ligands, and MOFs prepared from ‘hinged’ ligands.  The later of these show interesting structural flexibility.

Some recent contributions include:

• Control of framework interpenetration for in situ modified hydroxyl functionalised IRMOFs, Chemical Communications, 2012, 48, 10328-10330.

• Post-synthetic structural processing in a metal-organic framework material as a mechanism for exceptional CO₂/N₂ selectivity, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2013, 135, 10441-10448.

MOF Structuralisation, Composites and Particle Size

For MOFs to be applied as components of real-world systems, precise control over and optimisation of the physical form of the material is required. In this respect we are examining modulation of the crystal size and morphology (changes at the nanoscale) and how the application dictates the internal organisation of the solid and overall external shape of the composite (changes at the macroscale).  This work is done in collaboration with Dr Kenji Sumida (ARC DECRA fellow, School of Physcial Sciences, UoA).

See:

• Particle size effects in the kinetic trapping of a structurally-locked form of a flexible metal-organic framework, CrystEngComm, 2016, 18, 4172-4179.

• Influence of nanoscale structuralisation on the catalytic performance of ZIF-8: a cautionary surface catalysis study. CrystEngComm, 2018, 20, 4926-4934.