Recently, the Ming-Hua Zeng team from the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (School of Carbon Neutrality Future Technology) at Shantou University made new progress in the research field of "Synergistic Stimulus of Metal-organic Frameworks for Stable Super-cooled Liquid and Quenched Glass" in the top journal "Journal of the American Chemical Society" (impact factor 16.6) in the field of inorganic chemistry.

Authors:

Ming-Zhu Chen, Jian Li, Sheng Liao, Yi-Hang Guo, Tao Liu, Rui-Fang Ma, Tian-Yi Xie, Wei-Dong Liu, Si-Xu Peng, Xiaojun Kuang, Zheng Yin*, Yingbo Zhao*, Ming-Hua Zeng*

Paper information:

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144, 13021-13025.

Paper link:

https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.2c04532

English abstract of the paper:

Metal–organic framework (MOF) glasses are a fascinating new class of materials, yet their prosperity has been impeded by the scarcity of known examples and limited vitrification methods. In the work described in this report, we applied synergistic stimuli of vapor hydration and thermal dehydration to introduce structural disorders in interpenetrated dia-net MOF, which facilitate the formation of stable super-cooled liquid and quenched glass. The material after stimulus has a glass transition temperature (T_g) of 560 K, far below the decomposition temperature of 695 K. When heated, the perturbed MOF enters a super-cooled liquid phase that is stable for a long period of time (>10⁴ s), across a broad temperature range (26 K), and has a large fragility index of 83. Quenching the super-cooled liquid gives rise to porous MOF glass with maintained framework connectivity, confirmed by EXAFS and PDF analysis. This method provides a fundamentally new route to obtain glassy materials from MOFs that cannot be melted without causing decomposition.