A contemporary report on explications of flexible metal-organic frameworks with regards to structural simulation, dynamics and material applications

MY Khan and M Shahid, POLYHEDRON, 225, 116041 (2022).

DOI: 10.1016/j.poly.2022.116041

Flexible metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have sparked a lot of interest in view of their appealing features, which emerge from their elasticity and dynamic behaviour, and have a lot of potential applications in a number of sectors. Such MOFs have a unique flexibility that sets them apart from other conventional inorganic porous materials like porous silica and zeolites. These flexible scaffolds are suitable for gas storage or delivery, catalysis, sensing, separation of gases, guest capture and release as well as for scientific investigation. Recent advances in the finding, characterization, and structural research of flexible MOFs are discussed in this paper. Up to now, a novel category of MOFs having flexible frameworks has evolved, labeled as soft porous crystals, flexible MOFs, breathing MOFs, sponge-like MOFs, or dynamic MOFs. We explore many viewpoints and ways to understand and control flexible behaviour in a representative MOF platform in this review with the aim of conveying the fundamental ideas to a broad audience of academics, engineers, and materials scientists. Furthermore, pro- spective implications of flexible MOFs will be briefly mentioned, as well as advanced analytic methods and simulation that aid in the investigation of MOF flexibility under diverse situations and provide information into the creation of novel dynamic MOFs. The multiscale design of flexible MOF systems is required to translate molecular structural modifications to macroscopic responses. This review also covers advances in this domain over the last ten years, beginning with modular fabrication of basic components and ending with the regulation of dynamics in device architectures. The recent applications which make such MOFs intriguing are also sketched out with their future prospects.

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