Interplay between Defects, Disorder and Flexibility in Metal-Organic Frameworks

TL;DR

This paper discusses how defects, disorder, and flexibility are interconnected in metal-organic frameworks, shifting focus from synthesis to understanding their physical properties for enhanced functionalities.

Contribution

It provides a perspective on the interplay between defects, disorder, and flexibility in MOFs, highlighting recent advances and potential for functional improvements.

Findings

Flexibility is common in MOFs, not exceptional.

Defects and disorder significantly influence MOF properties.

Understanding interfaces can lead to enhanced MOF functionalities.

Abstract

Metal-organic frameworks are a novel family of chemically diverse materials, which are of interest across engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine-based disciplines. Since the development of the field in its current form more than two decades ago, priority has been placed on the synthesis of new structures. However, more recently, a clear trend has emerged in shifting the emphasis from material design to exploring the chemical and physical properties of those already known. In particular --- while such nanoporous materials were traditionally seen as rigid crystalline structures --- there is growing evidence that large-scale flexibility, the presence of defects and long-range disorder, are not the exception, but rather the norm, in metal-organic frameworks. Here we offer some perspective into how these concepts are perhaps inescapably intertwined, highlight recent advances in our understanding, and discuss how a consideration of the interfaces between them may lead to enhancements of the materials' functionalities.