Porous coordination polymers (PCPs) or metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as a new class of adsorbents showing advantages of diversified, tailoarable, and highly flexible structures. Conventional PCPs based on carboxylate and pyridyl type ligands usually suffer from difficulty in control over framework structure and/or low thermal/chemical stabilities. Deprotonated five-membered aromatic N-heterocycles such as imidazolate, pyrazolate, and triazolate derivatives, i.e. azolates, can provide strong coordination ability to transition metal ions and possess simple coordination modes. Therefore, metal azolate frameworks (MAFs) are beneficial for framework and pore-surface structure control, as well as high thermal and chemical stabilities. We have devoted to the design, synthesis, property, and application of PCPs, particularly those based on MAFs. We have discovered a series of MAFs with interesting structures and properties, such as the highly porous and stable zeolitic Zn(II) benzimidazolate MAF-3 and 2-methylimidazolate MAF-4, which have been widely studied as gas separation materials. In this report, we focus on the pore surface engineering and sorption mechanism of several new porous MAFs, which are potentially interesting for energy conversion and conversation applications such as adsorption refrigeration and carbon dioxide capture.

Porous metal azolate frameworks for energy conversion and conservation

246th National Meeting (2013)

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