Synthesis of hierarchical metal-organic frameworks for applications in catalysis and separation.

Porous solids are excellent catalyst and adsorbents. In general, porous materials could be classified based on their pore size distribution which cover indiscriminately the micro (<2 nm), meso (2–50 nm), and macro (>50 nm) size ranges. The active sites of the porous solids such as zeolites are often confined in their micropores which can impose severe mass-transfer constraints. Diffusion which is the main mechanism of mass transfer in microporous materials is of crucial importance for their application in catalysis and separation. The efficient way to overcome the mass transport limitation is to introduce additional secondary mesopore systems in microporous solid known as hierarchical. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a relatively new class of hybrid porous materials constructed from inorganic metal ions and organic linkers. MOFs have been reported as promising candidates for applications in catalysis and separation. The aim of this proposed research is (i) to create additional mesopore systems in potential reported microporous MOFs for improving their performance in the targeted domains (ii) liquid phase catalysis, (iii) adsorption separation of large molecule and (iv) hierarchical MOF filled mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) for gas separation.