Industrial applications of metal–organic frameworks

Abstract

New materials are prerequisite for major breakthrough applications influencing our daily life, and therefore are pivotal for the chemical industry. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) constitute an emerging class of materials useful in gas storage, gas purification and separation applications as well as heterogeneous catalysis. They not only offer higher surface areas and the potential for enhanced activity than currently used materials like base metal oxides, but also provide shape/size selectivity which is important both for separations and catalysis. In this critical review an overview of the potential applications of MOFs in the chemical industry is presented. Furthermore, the synthesis and characterization of the materials are briefly discussed from the industrial perspective (88 references).

Rapid room-temperature synthesis of hierarchical porous zeolitic imidazolate frameworks with high space-time yield

“…Energy consumption and production rates are important considerations in determining the cost and environmental impact (i.e., carbon footprint) of large-scale ZIF production [9,45,46]. Compared with conventional solvothermal methods with long crystalline times at HTP, our synthesis strategy allows the reaction to be completed within 1 min at RTP, which meets both the low-cost and environmental-friendly requirements for ZIF syntheses.…”

Aerobic Epoxidation of Olefins Catalyzed by the Cobalt‐Based Metal–Organic Framework STA‐12(Co)

“…MOFs usually have high porosity and specific surface areas that make them adequate candidates for catalytic applications both as high-surface-area supports and as intrinsic catalysts. [26,27] MOFs have been used as catalysts for various types of oxidation reactions in the liquid phase, for example, alcohol oxidation, [28] epoxidation, [29][30][31][32] hydrocarbon oxidation, [33][34][35][36] hydroquinone oxidation, [37] the oxidation of organic sulfides, [38] and the oxidation of aromatics. [39] For these oxidation reactions especially, a certain degree of deactivation is frequently observed.…”

Tuning the magneto-structural properties of non-porous coordination polymers by HCl chemisorption

“…In this area, coordination chemistry is having a key role by providing remarkable examples of molecule-based materials in which magnetic properties can be reversibly tuned at low temperatures through a physical stimulus, such as light 1,2 or pressure 3,4 . With the recent explosion in research on metal organic frameworks (MOFs) [5][6][7][8][9][10] , the use of a chemical stimulus such as gas sorption to affect the magnetic properties of a porous coordination polymer has also been explored 11 . However, the synthesis of magnetic MOFs is a challenging issue, as long-range magnetic ordering and porosity are inimical to one another: magnetic cooperativity due to exchange interactions is favoured with short distances, whereas porosity is enhanced with long linkers 12 .…”