Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of porous materials which are comprised of metal nodes coordinated to organic linkers to form a three-dimensional lattice structure.   Recently, MOFs have gained a great deal of attention due to their large surface areas and their customizability, which can be tailored via metal selection and ligand functionalization.   These properties make MOFs suitable for a multitude of applications, such as gas storage and separations, catalysis, and sensing. However, many of these materials lack stability under even mild aqueous conditions, which is a huge limitation for most practical uses.  One particular type of MOF, MIL-101(Fe), has shown promising structural stability and adsorption properties but degrades under most aqueous conditions. To address this, these compounds were functionalized with various amide groups via both pre- and post-synthetic functionalization. The functionalized materials were exposed to a range of acidic and basic aqueous solutions over multiple time periods, from hours to weeks. Powder x-ray diffraction was used to determine structural differences in the materials before and after contact with the aqueous/basic solutions.  Although the functionalization of these MOFs reduced their surface areas, their porosity remained relatively high, based on gas adsorption experiments.  Results have shown that the addition of certain amide groups to MIL-101(Fe) MOFs improve their stability in aqueous acidic and basic conditions while keeping their structures intact.   <br/>

Ligand functionalization to tune water uptake and stability in metal-organic frameworks

256th National Meeting (2018)

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