AsianScientist (Dec. 25, 2014) – By coating them with a thin hydrophobic layer, researchers have made metallic organic frameworks (MOFs) much more stable and easier to handle. The results, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, bring MOF technology one step closer to real world applications.
MOFs are a relatively new class of porous materials that have attracted great interest for their intriguing structural properties and potential applications. However, the metal-ligand coordination bonds required to form MOFs are moisture sensitive, making stability a major barrier limiting practical applications of MOFs.
To address this issue, a team led by Professors Yu Shuhong and Jiang Hailong’s research groups at University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered a general and effective approach to protecting the structural integrity of MOFs.
Using a simple polydimethysiloxane (PDMS)-coating treatment, they were able to form a protective hydrophobic thin layer on the surface of MOFs. The team used three representative MOFs to investigate their water stability before and after PDMS coating to demonstrate the universality of their PDMS-coating approach.
All PDMS-modified MOFs exhibited enhanced stability of the framework against degradation toward moisture/water. The PDMS-coated MOF retained their high porosity and surface area, as well as the active sites that remain accessible to substrates after water treatment.
The article can be found at: Zhang et al. (2014) A Facile and General Coating Approach to Moisture/Water-Resistant Metal–Organic Frameworks with Intact Porosity.
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Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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