Metal-Organic Frameworks for Separations toward Environmental and Biomedical Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are nanostructured coordination polymers, which contain metal cations and organic groups (linkers). Since their discovery about two decades ago, MOFs have attracted a tremendous amount of interest due to their unique structure and properties. Their structure is composed of repeating nanocages, the size and shape of which can be varied through synthesis by selecting linkers, substituent groups in them, or metals.

Over 5000 MOFs have been reported, and new MOFs are being discovered on a daily basis. The highly porous MOF structure favors the inclusion (sorption) and exclusion (desorption) of various “guest” molecules of interest to many branches of chemistry and engineering. MOFs remain a “hot topic” of both basic and applied research related to sorption/desorption and separations. In academia, there is a growing interest in understanding how the structure of MOF results in the selectivity and capacity of sorption, and the underlying chemical mechanisms. It is also of interest to understand how synthesis can be adjusted to tune properties of the given MOF.

Studies on the environmental applications of MOFs cover the purification of water, liquid fuels, the detoxification of waste streams of industry and agriculture, the purification and separation of gases and air, and many others. Research on emerging biomedical applications includes MOFs for the delivery of drugs and other biologically active compounds. Sustainable use of MOFs as sorbents implies that their major properties are preserved after “sorption/regeneration” cycles. This drives attention to the comprehensive characterization of MOFs by contemporary methods of structural and spectroscopic analysis, including in-situ and operando approaches.

We hope that your research is in the very interesting, “hot”, and rapidly evolving field of MOFs. This is our pleasure to invite you to contribute your research article, communication, or review for this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Alexander Samokhvalov
Guest Editor

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• Metal-organic framework
• MOF
• Separation
• Sorption
• Purification
• Water
• Gas
• Fuel
• Drug delivery