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Stimuli-responsive metal–organic frameworks enabled by intrinsic molecular motion

Nature Materials volume 21, pages 1334–1340 (2022)Cite this article

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Synthetic stimuli-responsive systems have become increasingly sophisticated and elegant at the nanoscale. This Comment discusses how rationally designed molecular systems capable of dynamic motions can be deployed in macroscopically porous metal–organic frameworks and respond to various stimuli.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) or porous coordination polymers (PCPs), constructed from organic linkers and metal ions, clusters or chains, have been at the forefront of chemistry and materials science research over the past few decades1,2. With highly crystalline, porous and tunable structures3, a plethora of MOFs exist and have found widespread applications according to their distinct properties determined by the nature of the constituent linkers and metals4,5. Although most MOFs are robust with static frameworks, flexible MOFs can undergo structural transformations under external stimuli, giving rise to unexpected functionalities6. The first gate-opening gas adsorption of flexible PCPs was reported in 20037. Subsequently, the authors explicitly demonstrated the dynamic motion of mobile organic groups (such as naphthalene rings) controlled by guests in the porous frameworks8. These encouraging results suggest that introducing dynamic elements into the backbone can yield MOFs with dynamic structures and flexibility while preserving crystalline order and periodicity. Remarkably, MOFs with internal dynamics can respond to environmental variations in temperature, pressure and viscosity, and even to the presence of light, electric fields and guest molecules9. These stimuli-responsive MOFs (SR-MOFs) potentially have more applications than conventional MOFs.

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Fig. 1: Rationally designed SR-MOFs.
Fig. 2: Stimuli-responsive peptide-MOFs.
Fig. 3: Dynamic characterizations of SR-MOFs.
Fig. 4: Potential applications of SR-MOFs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education - Singapore (MOE2018-T2-2-148, MOE2019-T2-1-093), the Energy Market Authority (EMA-EP009-SEGC-020), and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (U2102d2004, U2102d2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Jinqiao Dong, Vanessa Wee & Dan Zhao

  2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Jinqiao Dong

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  1. Jinqiao Dong
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Correspondence to Jinqiao Dong or Dan Zhao.

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Nature Materials thanks Stefan Kaskel and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Dong, J., Wee, V. & Zhao, D. Stimuli-responsive metal–organic frameworks enabled by intrinsic molecular motion. Nat. Mater. 21, 1334–1340 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01317-y

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