BCMaterials Fortnightly Seminar #64: Roberto Fernández & Rajasekhar Madugundo

ROBERTO FERNÁNDEZ

(BCMATERIALS)

Encapsulation of Ionic Liquids within Metal Organic Frameworks: towards new protonic conductors

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are crystalline and well-ordered materials with potential applications in gas storage, as molecular sieves, catalysis, gas sensing. MOF have been revealed as excellent low temperature proton conductors due to their capacity to retain water molecules in their porous structure. For some MOFs conductivity values near those for Nafion® commercial proton exchange membranes have been reached. An interesting strategy to enhance the proton conductivity of base MOFs is to encapsulate proton conduction carriers within the MOFs pores. Following this strategy, ionic liquids, as new promising green solvents, have been encapsulated within the porous structure of HKUST and MOF74 metal organic frameworks in order to enhance:

• The hydrophilicity of MOF initial materials
• Proton transfer pathways between ionic liquids components and water molecules located within the MOF´ pores.

Impedance spectroscopy measurements under increasing moisture content atmospheres show proton conductivity values near the 10^-3 S/cm for MOF74@IL composites. These values are one order of magnitude lowers than those obtained with commercial Nafion® proton exchange membranes.

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RAJASEKHAR MADUGUNDO

(BCMATERIALS)

"TBA"