Porous AND Electroactive Metal-organIC frameworks – PANDEMIC

The PANDEMIC project aims at the incorporation of electroactive moieties in porous crystalline materials. Multi-functional materials – porous, crystalline and conducting – will be devised using the rationale provided by the metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) synthetic strategies precepts. These will allow the controlled organization of the electroactive cores by strong metal-ligand interactions, in order to maximize the overlap between the electroactive pi-cores of the organic parts, and therefore the conduction properties of the obtained materials.
Developed since the end of the eighties, MOFs – formed by the controlled self-assembly of inorganic and organic moieties – offer limitless possibilities to develop new materials for precise purposes, depending not only on the properties of the organic/inorganic moieties used, but also on the 3-D structural organization of the building blocks within the material. MOFs are well-known for their high and tunable porosity, making them good candidates for gas storage and capture, or heterogeneous catalysis. On the other hand, MOFs showing both excellent electron conduction and porosity are scarce in the literature, despite the fact that the development of materials combining these two properties would lead to cutting-edge functionalities and applications, e.g. as sensors or battery electrodes.
Considering the high level of knowledge on conducting materials in MOLTECH, it is expected for the laboratory to bring its insights into this emerging field. Most of the literature reported conducting MOFs are based on Tetrathiafulvalene (TTF), benzene hexathiolate or phenolates, while MOLTECH reported organic crystalline (semi/supra)conductors with a large set of organic building blocks, thus expanding the scope of materials in this field. The same outcome is expected in the field of MOFs if MOLTECH expertise is added to it: an expansion of the set of materials and the discovery of exciting new highly conducting & porous materials.