Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are an intriguing field of study due to their porous three-dimensional structures that possess significant internal surface areas. As a result of this, extensive studies have been conducted for the application of MOFs in catalysis, gas sorption, and drug delivery. It has been reported that the pores of some MOFs have the ability to expand and contact in response to external stimuli. This breathing phenomenon is a desirable property for the storage/separation of gas molecules possessing weak intermolecular forces like hydrocarbons. In order to synthesize a new breathing MOF we decided to employ the utilization of ligands that have a lot of conformational flexibility. In this study, our flexible ligands were synthesized using methods adapted from the literature and were characterized by <sup>1</sup>H NMR and <sup>13</sup>C NMR. Solvothermal synthesis was used to investigate the coordination chemistry of these ligands utilizing various metal salts. Our attempts to characterize the metal-organic products resulting from these reactions by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, powder X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, FTIR, and gas sorption analysis are described herein.

Designing flexible ligands for the synthesis of breathable metal-organic frameworks

255th National Meeting (2018)

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