Scientific Achievement
A group of Foundry users and staff have developed a procedure to make a metal-organic framework (MOF) with the highest electron charge mobility ever observed.
Significance and Impact
The technique makes a MOF 10,000x better at conducting electricity. The technique could turn MOFs into all-purpose materials for making batteries and fuel cells, or into additives for composite materials to make porous conductors.
Research Details
- MOFs are highly customizable porous networks featuring cages that can come in many sizes and can attract and hold a variety of chemical components, but generally don’t conduct electricity.
- By adding a potassium chemical mix to an iron benzenedipyrazolate (BDP) MOF, extra electrons are produced that can enter the MOF’s iron center and conduct electricity by hopping along the length of one crystal axis of the rod-shaped crystals.
- The research team used platinum contacts on either side of the MOF crystals to grow them large enough to use, but keep their atoms are perfectly aligned.
- Theoretical models were developed at the Molecular Foundry to aid in the design of these MOFs.
