Linking disorder and application in porous hybrid frameworks

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.