ABSTRACT
Metal-organic frameworks (MOF) are one of the classes of hybrid materials. MOFs have been scaled down to nanometer sizes, called nanoscale-MOFs (NMOFs), which have the exact same structures as MOFs but fall in the nanoregime in terms of crystal size, exhibiting several potential advantages over conventional hybrid nanomaterials. The choice of metal centers and organic linkers is crucial in designing functional NMOFs for biomedical application. Many metals build stable and robust frameworks but are highly toxic and therefore cannot be used for biomedical application. Since the types of organic ligands are limitless, the variety of biomedical NMOFs likely depends on the choice of the organic ligands. Several general methods that have been used to synthesize NMOFs are hydrosolvothermal, surfactant-templated solvothermal reactions, sonochemical and microwave assisted hydro/solvothermal synthesis. Post-synthetic modification is the most common method for the tuning and functionalization of NMOFs.
