Preparation and Pore-Characteristics Control of Nano-Porous Materials using Organometallic Building Blocks

Recently, the control of pore-characteristics of nano-porous materials has been studied extensively because of their unique applications, which includes size-selective separation, gas adsorption/storage, heterogeneous catalysis, etc. The most widely adopted techniques for controlling pore characteristics include the utilization of pillar effect by metal oxide and of templates such as zeolites. More recently, coordination polymers constructed by transition metal ions and bridging organic ligands have afforded new types of nano-porous materials, porous metal-organic framework(porous MOF), with high degree and uniformity of porosity. The pore characteristics of these porous MOFs can be designed by controlling the coordination number and geometry of selected metal, e.g transition metal and rare-earth metal, and the size, rigidity, and coordination site of ligand. The synthesis of porous MOF by the assembly of metal ions with di-, tri-, and poly-topic N-bound organic linkers such as 4,4'-bipyridine(BPY) or multidentate linkers such as carboxylates, which allow for the formation of more rigid frameworks due to their ability to aggregate metal ions into M-O-C cluster, have been reported. Other porous MOF from co-ligand system or the ligand with both C-O and C-N type linkage can afford to control the shape and size of pores. Furthermore, for the rigidity and thermal stability of porous MOF, ring-type ligand such as porphyrin derivatives and ligands with ability of secondary bonding such as hydrogen and ionic bonding have been studied.