Recent Electrochemical Applications of Metal–Organic Framework-Based Materials
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A huge challenge facing scientists is the development of adsorbent materials that exhibit ultrahigh porosity but maintain balance between gravimetric and volumetric surface areas for the onboard storage of hydrogen and methane gas—alternatives to conventional fossil fuels. Here we report the simulation-motivated synthesis of ultraporous metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) based on metal trinuclear clusters, namely, NU-1501-M (M = Al or Fe). Relative to other ultraporous MOFs, NU-1501-Al exhibits concurrently a high gravimetric Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) area of 7310 m 2 g -1 and a volumetric BET area of 2060 m 2 cm -3 while satisfying the four BET consistency criteria. The high porosity and surface area of this MOF yielded impressive gravimetric and volumetric storage performances for hydrogen and methane: NU-1501-Al surpasses the gravimetric methane storage U.S. Department of Energy target (0.5 g g -1 ) with an uptake of 0.66 g g -1 [262 cm 3 (standard temperature and pressure, STP) cm -3 ] at 100 bar/270 K and a 5- to 100-bar working capacity of 0.60 g g -1 [238 cm 3 (STP) cm -3 ] at 270 K; it also shows one of the best deliverable hydrogen capacities (14.0 weight %, 46.2 g liter -1 ) under a combined temperature and pressure swing (77 K/100 bar → 160 K/5 bar).
Presented at Materials Science & Technology (MS&T) 2020
Presented at PittCon 2021
Using fixed atom force fields to model gas adsorption in flexible metal organic frameworks (MOFs) is known to pose difficulties in accurately reproducing and predicting experimental results. This paper studies the difference in accuracy between flexible and fixed atom force fields in reproducing CO 2 adsorption measurements in MAF-2 ([Cu(etz)]∞ (MAF-2, Hetz) 3,5-diethyl-1,2,4-triazole), an NbO-type triazolate scaffold with a bcu cavity system and attached ethyl groups. The flexible force field used to run the hybrid molecular dynamics and grand canonical Monte Carlo calculations were generated using the QuickFF software incorporating van der Waals parameters from the Universal Force Field (UFF) and density derived electrostatic and chemical (DDEC) charges. The fixed atom force field used was composed of UFF van der Waals parameters together with DDEC charges. The calculations were run at 298 K and at pressures of 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, and 1 bar. It was observed that for this MOF the rigid force field overpredicted gas adsorption, whereas the flexible force field values closely matched experimental data. In the flexible structure, the freely moving ethyl groups of MAF-2 hindered adsorption, reducing the interaction energy between CO 2 and the N atoms of the triazolate framework as well as reducing the size of the largest cavity diameter. Here, the combination of these factors led to improved prediction of adsorption values with the flexible forcefield as compared to the rigid forcefield, demonstrating the need for modeling MOFs in a way more indicative of their behavior.
Liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) are an attractive fuel source due to their compatibility with existing transportation methods and ease of use. However, they suffer from sluggish (de)hydrogenation kinetics. One promising platform for developing next-generation catalysts is metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), which can enable systematic interrogation into the influence of metal identity and spatial arrangement. In this study, the effect of the coordination environment was investigated using Ni- and Co-based azolate MOFs: MFU-4l-OH (M x Zn 5–x (OH) 4 (BTDD) 3 ; x = 4 for M = Co and x = 3 for M = Ni, H 2 BTDD = bis(1H-1,2,3-triazolo[4,5-b][4′,5′-i])dibenzo[1,4]dioxin), composed of single-site nodes, and M(OH) 2 BBTA (M = Ni, Co; H 2 BBTA = 1H,5H-benzo(1,2-d:4,5-d’)bistriazole), composed of extended chain-type nodes. The catalysts were characterized by isotherms, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. Acetylene hydrogenation activity under steady state conditions (150 °C, 1:1 C 2 H 2 :H 2 ) revealed higher turnover frequencies (TOFs) up 1.17 × 10 –2 mol C 2 H 2 mol −1 Ni min −1 and 1.98 × 10 –3 mol C 2 H 2 mol −1 Co min −1 for Ni-MFU-4l-OH and Co-MFU-4l-OH, respectively, compared to their BBTA analogues. However, the Co-based MOFs, particularly Co 2 (OH) 2 -BBTA, exhibited greater selectivity (up to 19%) for the fully hydrogenated ethane product. Isosteric heat of adsorption (Q st ) measurements for ethylene and ethane revealed that the BBTA framework had stronger binding to the products than MFU-4l. Furthermore, these findings demonstrate that metal identity and coordination environment may modulate acetylene hydrogenation performance, leading to design principles for tuning LOHC hydrogenation catalysts.
The tunability of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) makes them exceptional materials for the development of highly selective, low-power sensors for toxic gas detection. Herein, we demonstrate enhanced detection of NO 2 gas by a MOF-based electrical impedance sensor made using a unique mixed metal MOF-on-MOF synthesis. For this work, a combined experimental and computational study was performed using the exemplar Ni x Mg 1–x -MOF-74 to understand the fundamental structure–property relationships behind metal mixing and MOF film synthesis methods on sensor performance. Density functional theory results indicated that the presence of Ni in Mg-MOF-74 increased framework stability and increased the electron density of states at lower energies near the HOMO, as well as enhanced the NO 2 –Mg adsorption interaction. Impedance data of the Ni x Mg 1–x -MOF-74 films with larger Ni contents showed greater impedance change after exposure to 1 ppm of NO 2 gas. Furthermore, when synthesized through either a drop-cast or direct solvothermal film growth approach, the monometallic Ni-based sensors had the best performance. However, the mixed metal Ni x Mg 1–x -MOF-74 sensors synthesized through a MOF-on-MOF approach resulted in the highest impedance change, outperforming all monometallic Ni-based sensors. In particular, the mixed metal Ni-on-Mg-MOF-74 film was the best-performing sensor with an impedance change of 309 upon trace NO 2 exposure. Change in impedance response after NO 2 exposure was improved by 52% compared to the best monometallic Ni-on-Ni-MOF-74 sensor. Structural analysis of the Ni-on-Mg film showed that the first Mg-MOF-74 layer acts as a structural template controlling the structural features of the final film after metal exchange with Ni. This led to improved film quality, evidenced by the greater crystallinity and larger MOF grain sizes, and resulted in enhanced sensor performance which was not achievable through other metal mixing methods. Altogether, this study identifies structure–property relationships and synthetic templating methods that inform MOF-based sensor design, allowing for improved detection of toxic compounds.
Cooperative interactions are responsible for the useful properties of spin crossover (SCO) materials–large hysteresis windows, critical temperatures near room temperature, and abrupt transitions–with hybrid framework materials exhibiting the greatest cooperativity and hysteresis of all SCO systems. However, little is known about the chemical origin of cooperativity in frameworks. Here, we present a combined experimental–computational approach for identifying the origin of cooperativity in the metal–organic framework (MOF) Fe(1,2,3-triazolate) 2 (Fe(TA) 2 ), which exhibits the largest known hysteresis window of all SCO materials and unusually high transition temperatures, as a roadmap for understanding the manipulation of SCO behavior in general. Variable-temperature vibrational spectroscopy provides evidence that “soft modes” associated with dynamic metal–linker bonding trigger the cooperative SCO transition. Thermodynamic analysis also confirms a cooperativity magnitude much larger than those of other SCO systems, while electron density calculations of Fe(TA) 2 support previous theoretical predictions that large cooperativity arises in materials where SCO produces considerable differences in metal–ligand bond polarities between different spin states. Taken together, this combined experimental–computational study provides a microscopic basis for understanding cooperative magnetism and highlights the important role of dynamic bonding in the functional behavior of framework materials.
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a promising class of adsorbents. The performance of MOF sorbents relies on high selectivity and low regeneration energy. This work focuses on the use of machine learned force fields (MLFFs) to model adsorption in a flexible MOF, SIFSIX-3-Cu. A DeePMD-based MLFF was trained to reproduce DFT (PBE+D3) energies, forces, and stresses, using an iterative sampling scheme combining sampling based on molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo, and geometry optimization to capture both attractive and repulsive regions of the potential energy surface. Flexibility of the MOF was explicitly included in this model. Hybrid Monte Carlo/molecular dynamics (MC/MD) simulations using the MLFF predicted adsorption isotherms in good agreement with experimental data for a range of pressures (40 Pa – 104 Pa) in contrast to rigid models, which overpredict CO2 adsorption at low pressures. The improvement was the result of a description of the variability of fluorine-fluorine diagonal distances at adsorption sites. This detailed description of flexibility afforded by the MLFF resulted in more accurate predictions adsorption isotherms when compared to the experimentally measured values. These results underscore the importance of including framework flexibility when modeling adsorption phenomena in MOFs, particularly for low pressure applications and provide a robust procedure for training MLFF models for MOFs.
A mixed-valence oxotrimer metal–organic framework (MOF), Ni-MIL-127, with a fully coordinated nickel atom and two iron atoms in the inorganic node, generates a missing linker defect upon thermal treatment in helium (>473 K) to engender an open coordination site on nickel which catalyzes propylene oligomerization devoid of any cocatalysts or initiators. This catalyst is stable for ~20 h on stream at 500 kPa and 473 K, unprecedented for this chemistry. The number of missing linkers on synthesized and activated Ni-MIL-127 MOFs is quantified using temperature-programmed oxidation, 1 H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and X-ray absorption spectroscopy to be ~0.7 missing linkers per nickel; thus, a majority of Ni species in the MOF framework catalyze propylene oligomerization. In situ NO titrations under reaction conditions enumerate ~62% of the nickel atoms as catalytically relevant to validate the defect density upon thermal treatment. Propylene oligomerization rates on Ni-MIL-127 measured at steady state have activation energies of 55–67 kJ mol –1 from 448 to 493 K and are first-order in propylene pressures from 5 to 550 kPa. Density functional theory calculations on cluster models of Ni-MIL-127 are employed to validate the plausibility of the missing linker defect and the Cossee–Arlman mechanism for propylene oligomerization through comparisons between apparent activation energies from steady-state kinetics and computation. Here this study illustrates how MOF precatalysts engender defective Ni species which exhibit reactivity and stability characteristics that are distinct and can be engineered to improve catalytic activity for olefin oligomerization.