News & Events

Characterization of Metal-organic Frameworks: Unlocking the Potential of Solid-State NMR

Date: 
Friday, December 8, 2017 - 14:00 to 15:00
Speaker: 
Dr. Yining Huang
Affiliation: 
Department of Chemistry, University of Western Ontario
Event Category: 
Seminar - Seminar
Location: 
Chemistry D215

Abstract: An exciting advance in materials science is the development of hybrid organic-inorganic solids known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) because their unique properties such as modularity, tunable pore sizes/functionality, high surface areas and permanent porosity. Among numerous applications, MOFs are well-suited for the capture of greenhouse gases (CO2) and the storage of energy carrier gases (H2, CH4).

Solid-state NMR (SSNMR) spectroscopy is a powerful technique for MOF characterization. It provides nuclide-specific information on structure and dynamics, which is complementary to that obtained from X-ray diffraction.

In this presentation, I will give a brief overview of our recent work on MOF characterization by multinuclear SSNMR spectroscopy. The examples include directly probing the local environment of a variety of metal centers; identifying chemically different species; resolving crystallographically non-equivalent sites in the unit cell; characterizing the defects in the framework; locating the binding sites of gaseous molecules (CO2, CH4, H2) and obtaining dynamic info of guest species adsorbed in the MOF frameworks.