The Dilemma of Reproducibility of Gating Isotherms for Flexible MOFs

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Abstract

Porous materials receive a high level of scientific and technological interest due to their applications in various fields such as adsorption, separation and storage, catalysis, ion exchange, nanotechnology, etc. Gas adsorption is a well-established tool for the characterization of the texture of porous solids. Physisorption isotherms are generally expected to be well reproducible for rigid adsorbents, but this is not always the case for nonrigid (flexible) materials. The presence of a metastability region and sensitivity of the activation barriers to the material's texture often influence the isotherms' run. Here, we address the complexity that arises in terms of reproducibility and sample handling for flexible metal-organic frameworks, with the example of DUT-8(Ni). It belongs to the group of "gate opening"metal-organic frameworks and is a typical representative of the pillared layer compounds. We propose characteristic parameters for the analysis and comparison of adsorption isotherms, showing the "gate opening"step, associated with the adsorption-induced solid-state phase transition. A set of 50 nitrogen physisorption isotherms measured at 77 K were analyzed and correlated with the synthetic and outgassing conditions. The study highlights the importance of accurate descriptions and record-keeping of experimental details and their role in the replication of scientific results.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)14073-14083
Number of pages11
JournalLangmuir
Volume38
Issue number46
Publication statusPublished - 22 Nov 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Mendeley e7aec50c-05e3-3839-b644-e0cfecaf561a
WOS 000884844800001

Keywords

Keywords

  • Organic framework dut-8(ni), Determining surface-areas, Hydrogen storage, Bet method, Particle-size, Adsorption, Flexibility, Physisorption, Pressure