Catalyst heterogenization (MOFs)

Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are crystalline porous materials generated by the coordination between metal nodes and organic linkers.

The possibility to combine various organic linkers with various metal nodes gives immense versatility for their use for real-life applications in many fields (gas storage, drug delivery, water harvesting etc).

We plan to develop mesoporous MOFs to be used as a scaffold to make homogeneous catalysts heterogeneous by grafting (any) metal catalyst onto functional groups of the organic linkers.

These new materials can be strategically tuned to solve the problems of classic heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysts, showing high stability, good diffusion of reactants and products, easy accessibility of the catalytic sites, full characterization of the material (SCXRD) and the possibility to recover the MOFs including the transition metal catalysts and their activating ligands.

These unique characteristics of MOFs make them suitable for use as catalysts in any chemical reaction, giving particular advantages in the synthesis of big molecules including pharmaceuticals.