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  • Perspective
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Exploiting chemically selective weakness in solids as a route to new porous materials

Nature Chemistry volume 7, pages 381–388 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Weakness in a material, especially when challenged by chemical, mechanical or physical stimuli, is often viewed as something extremely negative. There are countless examples in which interesting-looking materials have been dismissed as being too unstable for an application. But instability with respect to a stimulus is not always a negative point. In this Perspective we highlight situations where weakness in a material can be used as a synthetic tool to prepare materials that, at present, are difficult or even impossible to prepare using traditional synthetic approaches. To emphasize the concept, we will draw upon examples in the field of nanoporous materials, concentrating on metal–organic frameworks and zeolites, but the general concepts are likely to be applicable across a wide range of materials chemistry. In zeolite chemistry, there is a particular problem with accessing hypothetical structures that this approach may solve.

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Figure 1: Energy–density correlations for zeolites and ZIFs.
Figure 2: Examples of exploiting weakness in metal–organic frameworks as a route to new materials and properties.
Figure 3: The ADOR process leads to families of zeolites with continuously tunable porosity.
Figure 4: Preparing currently inaccessible materials.

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Acknowledgements

R.E.M. thanks the Royal Society and the EPSRC (grants EP/L014475/1, EP/K025112/1 and EP/K005499/1) for funding work in this area. J.Č. acknowledges the Czech Science Foundation for the project of the Centre of Excellence (P106/12/G015) and the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/ 2007–2013) under grant agreement 604307. We thank P. Wheatley, P. Chlubna-Eliasova, W. Roth and P. Nachtigall for discussions.

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  1. EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9ST, UK

    Russell E. Morris

  2. J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic, v.v.i., Dolejškova 3, Prague 8, 182 23, Czech Republic

    Jiří Čejka

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Correspondence to Russell E. Morris.

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Morris, R., Čejka, J. Exploiting chemically selective weakness in solids as a route to new porous materials. Nature Chem 7, 381–388 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2222

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