Synthesis of novel large-pore MOFs as tunable catalytic nanoreactor.
Abstract
Everybody today has heard about the increasing need of having cheap, environmentally sustainable and green processes. The world is full of these high-sounding and fancy terms, but how to achieve them in practice? There are several ways to improve a chemical process, but most often studies are based on catalysts: the "accelerators" of chemical reactions. Catalysts are expensive, suffer from low stability and are difficult to separate/reuse, but their role is vital for pharmaceutical, agro and fine chemical industries. The immobilization of the catalysts on a support can solve all the mentioned problems. We propose a scaffold which has never been used before: Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs). MOFs are networks made by ion metals and rigid linkers. Under appropriate conditions these two parts can assemble a porous material on which we can immobilize the catalysts, making possible their recovery/reuse at the end of the process. The advantages of our scaffolds are immense: uniform, reproducible and controllable manufacture and the possibility to completely engineer the linkers. As a consequence, we can control the whole network structure: we can personalize it, giving new properties to the walls, and tuning the pore size. In other terms: modular haute couture, for the need of the mentioned chemical industries. If you were an industrial stakeholder, wouldn't this sound great to you?Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Vande Velde Christophe
- Co-promoter: Cool Pegie
- Fellow: Fucci Rosa
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
New functionalized MOFs for catalytic nanoreactor applications.
Abstract
This project aims to develop so-called "nanoreactors", which can be seen as an approach to heterogenization of homogeneous catalysis. The key idea is to develop self-assembling large-pore Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) via modification/optimization of their organic linkers. Starting from already existing networks, the organic linkers will be further functionalized at the side chains in order to couple them with a catalyst. The catalytic activity of the resulting nanoreactors will be demonstrated and their performance compared with the native catalyst in a homogeneous reaction mixture. As the reactors are crystalline, they have very well-defined pore shapes and sizes, the pores are continuous throughout the structure, and very controllable, reproducible and characterizeable. The project bridges the spearheads of "Materials Characterization" and "Sustainable Development".Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Vande Velde Christophe
- Co-promoter: Cool Pegie
- Fellow: Fucci Rosa
Research team(s)
- Applied Electrochemistry & Catalysis (ELCAT)
- Intelligence in PRocesses, Advanced Catalysts and Solvents (iPRACS)
Project type(s)
- Research Project