Aligning the most porous material in the world Wednesday, 07 December 2016

A CSIRO team has found a way to harness the potential of Metallic Organic Frameworks, the most porous materials on the planet, opening up new possibilities in the development of tiny devices as well as vaccines.

The CSIRO team, led by Dr Paolo Falcaro, collaborated with others in Japan, Australia, including Monash University and The University of Adelaide, in their research into Metallic Organic Frameworks (MOFs).

Metallic Organic Frameworks are so porous that a single teaspoon of the powdery material has the same surface area as a football field. They were discovered in 1999, and have since been used in an array of different fields, including electronics, pharmaceutics, and horticulture.

Potential applications include gas storage and delivery, natural gas purification, carbon capture and storage, batteries and catalysts, fuel production, water purification, solvent or heavy metal recovery, and sensors.

MOFs can be used to develop materials that store gases safely or in a more portable manner, separate gases and liquids from one another, etc.

Despite their potential, scientists and engineers have been limited by the erratic structure of MOFs, which makes it difficult to integrate them into functional devices.

"We've found a way to control the structure of MOFs and align them in one direction, creating a MOF film," explained CSIRO scientist Dr Aaron Thornton, co-author of the paper published in Nature Materials.

Aligning the MOFs allow them to conduct current better, opening up potential applications with electrical utility, such as implantable medical devices.

MOFs could also be structured in such a way that they'd only react with certain compounds or elements. An example would be clothing for miners that have a layer of MOFs, notifying the wearer when dangerous gases are building up.

CSIRO has already used MOFs to develop a molecular shell to protect and deliver drugs and vaccines, a 'solar sponge' that can capture and release carbon dioxide emissions and plastic material that gets better with age. The organisation is now seeking research organisations and teams that can help further develop the technology, as well as companies who wish to license the technology to use in their business.