Pore Shape Modification of a Microporous Metal-Organic Frame-work Using High Pressure: Accessing a New Phase with Oversized Guest Molecules

Pressures up to 0.8 GPa have been used to squeeze a range of sterically “oversized” C5–C8 alkane guest molecules into the cavities of a small-pore Sc-based metal–organic framework. Guest inclusion causes a pronounced reorientation of the aromatic rings of one-third of the terephthalate linkers, which act as “torsion springs”, resulting in a fully reversible change in the local pore structure. The study demonstrates how pressure-induced guest uptake can be used to investigate framework flexibility relevant to “breathing” behavior and to understand the uptake of guest molecules in MOFs relevant to hydrocarbon separation.

The University of Edinburgh School of Chemistry. (2015). Pore Shape Modification of a Microporous Metal-Organic Frame-work Using High Pressure: Accessing a New Phase with Oversized Guest Molecules, [dataset].