Templated mesoporous metal-organic frameworks: bridging the pore size gap

Porous materials are of tremendous importance to our everyday lives in applications such as catalysis, separation, and drug delivery such that developments in this research field can be truly transformative. Over the last decade, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have established themselves as an exciting class of new porous material due to the unique opportunity they present for tuning their pore size and functionalising their internal surfaces. MOFs however have pore sizes < 2 nm resulting in high selectivity for these applications, but which limit the range of (guest) molecules they can react with and their transport through the framework structures. A current challenge is therefore to increase the pore size of functional MOFs into the mesoporous range (2 – 50 nm). In order to bridge the porosity length-scale gap and ensure the broadest range of materials and properties are achievable, this project will target MOFs that combine both micro- and mesoporosity using a combined supramolecular template and extended building block approach, to prepare robust functional materials, including hybrids, in a diversity of configurations that contain both small micropores (from the MOF/hybrid) and large mesopores (from the template). This bimodal pore-size distribution will allow the high selectivities required for catalysis and separation, permit reaction and separation of larger species and ensure molecules can pass through unhindered, extending the applications and relevance of MOFs to address key societal challenges including the sustainability agenda