Targeting selective host-guest interactions in functionalized MOFs - synthesis, NMR-studies and sensor design

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Thomas Bein; Professorin Dr. Bettina Valeska Lotsch; Professor Dr. Ulrich Lüning; Professor Dr. Jürgen Senker; Professor Dr. Norbert Stock
• Subject Area: Inorganic Molecular Chemistry - Synthesis and Characterisation
• Term: from 2008 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 79828533

Metal-organic frameworks represent a highly versatile class of porous materials whose interactions with guest molecules can be controlled, in principle, by varying the nature of the organic linker molecules as well as the coordination environment of the constituting metal ions. This project aims at the understanding and control of host-guest interactions in MOFs, which will be achieved through functionalization of the organic linker molecules. Introducing well-positioned specific functionalities is anticipated to provide a number of important advantages including the variation of host-guest interactions in the same class of MOFs with similar overall properties and the ability to design selective interactions independent from the construction of the host lattice. Based on results of the first funding period, the project will concentrate on anchors with double and triple hydrogen bond patterns found in nature. They provide lock-key interactions with important biomolecules like nucleobases and barbiturates. By this it is anticipated to built-up a series of promising receptors for sensor studies. The partners in this consortium all bring complementary skills and background to the project, ranging from synthesis of molecular building blocks to the synthesis and functionalization of new MOF structures, the detailed physicochemical study of molecular host-guest interactions, to the growth and investigation of novel MOF-based thin films and MOF-based Bragg stacks, which will be explored as the basis for novel concepts in selective chemical sensing.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1362: Porous Metal-Organic Frameworks
• Major Instrumentation: High speed CP MAS probe
• Instrumentation Group: 1741 Festkörper-NMR-Spektrometer