Scalable continuous solvothermal synthesis of metal organic framework (MOF-5) crystals

By C. McKinstry, Russell J. Cathcart, E. Cussen, A. Fletcher, Siddharth V. Patwardhan, J. Sefcik. 2016

188 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOF)s are well suited as nanoporous materials for applications such as gas storage, catalysis and in medical devices. Literature predominantly covers information on the batch synthesis of MOF-5, however, for an industrially viable product to be formed, bridging the gap to scalable continuous processing is essential. Here, we show that crystals of MOF-5 can be formed in a scalable solvothermal continuous process with a maximum space time yield of nearly 1000 kg m-3 day-1. Analysis of the solid output as a function of time, in conjunction with variation of concentration of the feed supply, shows high purity MOF-5 is produced using a continuous system, with potentially high throughput on scale up. We also show that the output can be increased by increasing the concentration of reactants in the system, albeit resulting in a reduced surface area. The two most common solvents currently used for MOF-5 production are also compared to identify a more economically viable process.

Subfields: Inorganic Chemistry, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/443c15b49553456d9b4ead12db3caa1cddcde3c1