Topic: Metal-organic frameworks

Producing metal-organic frameworks as nanoparticles could make them easier to process at industrial scale and change properties such as transport. Controlled synthesis and the effects of particle size remain insufficiently understood. Carl K. Brozek presents synthetic methods and mechanistic models for preparing MOF nanoparticles whose electrical conduction, magnetism, optical response and dynamic bonding differ from bulk frameworks. Solution-state spectroscopy and electrochemistry expose size-dependent and interfacial effects that conventional framework materials do not reveal. The work provi

Omar M. Yaghi examines how reticular chemistry changes the scale and diversity of materials that chemists can design. By joining molecular building blocks into extended structures, researchers have developed large families of metal–organic frameworks and covalent organic frameworks with tunable internal spaces and functions. The lecture asks how artificial intelligence and robotics could accelerate the preparation and exploration of these materials, moving chemical discovery from scarcity toward abundance. Yaghi connects this approach to carbon capture and the collection of water from air, bu

Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar M. Yaghi examine the origins, development and applications of metal–organic frameworks. Robson follows the emergence of coordination polymers and the design of extended molecular structures from pre-organized building blocks, explaining the architectural ideas behind framework construction. Kitagawa describes how coordination chemistry led to porous materials and then to flexible crystalline structures. His discussion of soft porous crystals shows how frameworks can respond to external stimuli, opening and closing as they capture molecules, with implic