Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are a unique class of materials composed of metal clusters linked with organic ligands to yield nanoporous nanoparticles. MOFs are of interest in part due to their high porosity leading to high surface area. Applications of interest include gas storage, molecular separations, catalysis, sensing, and drug delivery. Since a variety of metals and ligands can be utilized to form MOFs, they represent a highly tunable class of modern materials. Herein we have developed a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) for a general chemistry lab at the University of San Diego which explores the use of MOFs as sorbent material. The motivation for this work stems from the need to introduce students to complex, open-ended modern problems early on. The students will design an experiment to study adsorption of a molecule of interest which is detectable by UV/Vis by a commercially available MOF. As such, we have collected data on the adsorption of representative compounds such as methyl blue and red dye-40 by a variety of MOFs including ZIF-8 and UiO-66. ZIF-8 readily adsorbs both dyes, with differing adsorption amounts at equilibrium, likely due to differences in molecular charge distribution and/or size. Second order kinetics were identified in both cases. Students, through this CURE experience, will be able to link real-world adsorptive properties of MOFs to molecular properties.

Development of a MOF-based CURE for second semester general chemistry lab

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.