Large-Pore Apertures in a Series of Metal-Organic Frameworks

Large-Pore Apertures in a Series of Metal-Organic Frameworks
Hexiang Deng, Sergio Grunder, Kyle E. Cordova, Cory Valente, Hiroyasu Furukawa, Mohamad Hmadeh, Felipe Gándara, Adam C. Whalley, Zheng Liu, Shunsuke Asahina, Hiroyoshi Kazumori, Michael O’Keeffe, Osamu Terasaki, J. Fraser Stoddart, Omar M. Yaghi

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6084/1018.full

A series of MOFs (based on MOF-74) with systematically lengthened struts has been synthesized.  The authors varied the number of substituted [for enhanced solubility] benzene rings in the struts to change the strut length.  As a consequence, they obtained the lowest-density (to date) crystalline material (guest-free density = 0.195 cm3/g), and the pore aperture diameter in their materials ranged from 14 to 98 angstroms.  With such large pores, some of these mesoporous materials were capable of adsorbing such molecules as vitamin B12 and GFP.