WFU Physics Colloquium
TITLE: “The fascinating world of Metal Organic Framework materials”
SPEAKER: Yves Chabal
Department of Materials Science and Engineering,
University of Texas at Dallas,
Dallas, TX
TIME: Wed. Nov. 1, 2017 at 4:00 PM
PLACE: George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)
There will be a reception with refreshments at 3:30 PM in the lounge. All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.
ABSTRACT
Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are a new class of hybrid nanoporous materials that are attracting much interest due to their potential applications for gas storage and separation, pollutant sequestration including radioactive materials, sensing, biomedical devices, fuel production and more recently catalysis. They are crystalline, with metal centers at the corners of the unit cell connected by organic linkers, and are obtained by relatively straightforward synthesis methods (e.g. one-pot process). Consequently, a
large number of structures can be prepared, over 50,000 so far. With their well-defined crystalline structure (determined by X-ray diffraction), these materials are ideal to study fundamental processes, such as the interaction of small gases in nanopores, chemical functionalization of nanoporous networks
and potential catalytic activity. Recently, there has even been some effort to synthesize small metallic nanoparticles inside the pores of the network.
This talk will illustrate some of the fascinating behaviors and properties of MOFs by focusing on trapping small molecules into one of the best-characterized MOF structures (MOF-74), and on synthesizing directly 1nm-diameter Au nanoparticles inside the pores of a novel MOF structure (MOF-808). Along the way, it will also show how precise information can be derived from a host of spectroscopic (infrared, Raman, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV-vis, low-energy ion scattering) and imaging (TEM) measurements, in addition to the more conventional measurements (e.g. isotherms). The importance of
first-principles calculations will be highlighted as a means to extract quantitative information from IR spectroscopy and to gain fundamental understanding of important processes.
