Linking disorder and application in porous hybrid frameworks

该项目的目的是证明MOF领域完全错误，并鼓励对非晶和无序材料的新兴趣。金属有机骨架（MOFs）是一种多孔杂化材料，不仅可以根据大小，还可以根据化学性质来区分分子。在报道的6万个结构中，99.9%以上是结晶固体。密集的研究努力和产业资金投入到高度结晶的“无缺陷结构”中。然而，这种假设的结晶度和功能性质之间的关系与聚合物和玻璃相关领域所采用的逻辑根本相反，聚合物和玻璃在催化和分离等材料光谱中广泛使用。该项目将重点研究低结晶度工业相关材料的结构特征和性能。

The aim of this project is to prove the MOF field completely wrong and encourage a new interest in amorphous and disordered materials. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous hybrid materials, which are able to differentiate molecules based not only on size, but also on chemistry. Over 99.9% of the 60,000 structures reported are crystalline solids. Intensive research efforts and industrial finance are invested into highly crystalline 'defect-free structures'. This assumed relationship between crystallinity and functional properties is however fundamentally opposed to the logic employed in related fields of polymers and glasses, which are used widely across the materials spectrum in e.g. catalysis and separations. The project will focus on the structural characterisation and properties of industrially relevant materials of low crystallinity.