Recently, the development of electrically conductive metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) has been of considerable interest from many perspectives as they are the active materials in several applications such as in electrocatalysis, electronics, supercapacitors, chemiresistive sensors, electrochromic devices, light-harvesting systems, and energy storage technologies. The majority of the MOFs are insulating as they result from coordination between metal ions and carboxylate type of linkers, and it usually forms ionic bonds with metal ions leading to significant energy band gaps and trapped valences/confined electronic states. However, the MOFs' chemical and structural tunability allows modifications and makes them electrically conducting. The two key strategies of charge transport called through-bond and through-space are used frequently to design the electrically conductive MOFs. The former focuses on improving bonding between the metal and ligands to achieve stronger charge delocalization; the latter targets noncovalent interaction between organic fragments, particularly π-π stacking, to introduce continuous charge transport. Several reports are available on conducting MOFs designed using these two strategies separately. The through space charge transport strategy is primarily used to convert electrically insulating MOFs to conducting MOFs. However, it will be exciting to introduce both mechanisms in the same network, which can significantly enhance the electrical conductivity of the MOFs. We have constructed an electrically conductive MOF involving both charge transport mechanisms and explored its electrical property. The MOF showed very high electrical conductivity, even higher than the MOF was synthesized by applying one type of charge transport mechanism. This strategy will open a new way to modify the structure of the MOFs and consequently increase the electrical conductivity.

Enhancing the electrical conductivity of the MOF by introducing charge transfer interaction

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