Development and commercialisation of a flexible manufacturing process to produce monolithic metal-organic framework (MOF) materials.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are an exciting class of porous materials, with added versatility and performance over competing materials such as zeolites, activated carbons, and traditional catalysts. With large internal surface areas acting as sites for molecules to adsorb to, MOFs possess some of the highest gas storage capacities of any known material. At a given pressure, a tank filled with a MOF can store much more gas than an empty tank. The unique ability to tailor their structure to have specific characteristics means MOFs have applications across a diverse set of industries, from gas storage and separation, to catalysis and drug delivery. A major challenge for their industrial use is to shape and densify the powdered materials post-synthesis, without getting a drop in performance.

Immaterial Labs Ltd design and manufacture monolithic MOFs in a one-step synthesis which shapes and densifies the materials whilst maintaining performance and delivering world-leading adsorption capacities. Immaterial have applied their enabling pelletisation technology to make a material that has broken all records for the volumetric storage of natural gas, offering a 50% improvement over the closest competitor. This Innovate UK project studies the industrial-scale production of monolithic MOFs, and their subsequent use-cases, aiming to: 1) design and build a flexible manufacturing facility capable of a 100kg/day throughput for 5 different monolithic MOFs, 2) complete application specific testing with key partners to develop materials to TRL6-9 and MRL6-9, and 3) engage new customers in the design of novel monolithic MOFs for additional use-cases.