There has been an increasing interest in the development of nano-to-micro organic and inorganic devices and machines that are capable of moving autonomously in solution. Indeed, the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for work on molecular machines. Among the many micro/nanoscale machines, chemically-powered micromotors are quite powerful and versatile for many practical applications such as biological targeting, transportation and isolation, drug delivery, and environmental remediation. Considering the chemical diversity and tunability of porous metal-organic framework (MOF) materials, the use of MOFs to build micromotors is of great value; however, MOFs have gathered little attention to date as micromotors. Herein, we report facile preparation of micromotors from the widely used Zr<sup>4+</sup>-based UiO-67 MOF scaffold. The resulting MOF micromotors showed efficient motion in fuel solution and the ‘performance’ of the ‘engine’ could be tuned by using different metal ions. Importantly, chemical ‘brakes’ were shown to reduce and ultimately stop the motion of the micromotors.

Metal-organic frameworks as micromotors with tunable engines and brakes

254th National Meeting (2017)

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