Metal-organic Frameworks (MOFs)
Come to grow your MOF, and see how it absorbs mechancial energy?
Why Does MOF Look Like This?
MOFs are made up of metal nodes and organic linkers. We have Zoobs to represent these building blocks with rigid and well-defined connections, so they can form a variety of regular, repetitive, and porous structures. Depending on the chemistry, MOFs can have hydrophobic or hydrophilic pores.
How does MOF absorb energy?
MOFs contain pores which allows water molecules (modelled by the balls) to be pushed into them. When these pores are hydrophobic, a pressure is required for the water molecules to enter the pores. When this pressure is removed, the water molecules leave the pores spontaneously, allowing the MOF to be used again!
As the water molecules leave the pores at a lower pressure than at which they entered, this water ‘intrusion-extrusion’ process absorbs mechanical energy.
Did you know?
The pores in MOFs can be as small as 1 nm; that’s nearly 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair! MOFs have the highest surface area of all crystalline materials, which lets them be widely used in chemical processes such as gas adsorption, liquid separation, energy storage.
Our group is investigating the energy absorption capabilities of a range of MOFs, particularly a subclass called ‘zeolitic imidazolate frameworks’.
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