First author Pia Vervoorts discussing results of experiments and simulations with her colleagues. Image: A. Eckert / TUM
First author Pia Vervoorts discussing results of experiments and simulations with her colleagues. Image: A. Eckert / TUM Combined efforts of experiment and simulation pave the way to new applications - Materials consisting of inorganic and organic components can combine the best of two worlds: under certain circumstances, the so-called MOFs - short for metal-organic frameworks - are structured in the same order as crystals and are at the same time porous and deformable. This opens up the prospect of intelligent materials for energy-saving technical applications. However, so far only a few flexible MOFs have been identified. A research team from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and Technical University of Munich (TUM) has used experiments and simulations to find out by what means MOFs can be rendered flexible and why: they tricked the system by using clever chemical manipulations to enable a variety of energetically similar arrangements in the crystalline order. The application potential of MOFs was first discovered around 20 years ago, and almost 100,000 such hybrid porous materials have since been identified. There are great hopes for technical applications, especially for flexible MOFs.
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