MOF tagged posts

Researchers have developed a specialized type of glowing metal organic framework, or LMOF (molecular structure at center), that is designed to detect and remove heavy-metal toxins from water. At upper left, mercury (Hg) is taken in by the LMOF. The graph at lower left shows how the LMOF’s fluorescence is turned off as it binds up the mercury. Its properties make this LMOF useful for both detecting and trapping heavy-metal toxins. Credit: Rutgers University

X-ray study explores atomic structure of tiny traps for heavy metals. Tiny, glowing crystals that detect and capture heavy-metal toxins such as lead and mercury could prove to be a powerful new tool in locating and cleaning up contaminated water sources...

Squeezing iron-containing ferrocene (not to scale) in the pores of the metal-organic framework known as MIL-101 lets ferrocene’s iron snag oxygen from passing air. Credit: PNNL

Inexpensive materials called MOFs pull gases out of air or other mixed gas streams, but fail to do so with oxygen. Now, a team has overcome this limitation by creating a composite of a MOF and a helper molecule in which the 2 work in concert to separate oxygen from other gases simply and cheaply. The results might help with a wide variety of applications, including making pure oxygen for fuel cells, using that oxygen in a fuel cell, removing oxygen in food packaging, making oxygen sensors, or for other industrial processes...

Over time, the zinc ions in MOF-5 (pink solutions) get replaced with cobalt ions, (blue solutions) demonstrating the dynamics of metal organic frameworks. Credit: American Chemical Society.

MOF’s have many potential apps: antimicrobial agents, H-storage materials and solar-cell components.

Despite their rigid-sounding name, MOF structures are also dynamic – much more so than previously thought. This discovery could lead to the synthesis of brand-new types of materials. As the name implies, MOFs are composed of networks of organic (carbon-based) compounds interspersed with metal ions. Many different combinations of metals and organic components exist, but much of what we know about these systems comes from a zinc and benzene di-acid framework called MOF5...