ABSTRACT
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are relatively new nanoporous
materials having fascinating structural, physical, and chemical
properties. MOFs, also known as porous coordination polymers
(PCPs) or porous coordination networks (PCNs), are hybrid
materials composed of single metal ions or polynuclear metal
clusters linked by organic ligands through strong coordination
bonds. MOFs have several useful properties such as very large
surface areas, ultralow densities, uniformly structured pores, and
good thermal and mechanical properties. The most significant
advantage of MOFs over other traditional nanoporous materials
is the ability to obtain pore structures with desired shape, size,
and surface characteristics by variation of the organic ligands
and metal clusters during synthesis. In this way, it is possible to
obtain a large variety of unique materials by combining different
metals and organic linkers. Hundreds of MOF materials with
various physical and chemical characteristics have been synthesized
to date. Most of the studies in the literature have focused on
a few specific MOF groups such as isoreticular metal-organic
frameworks (IRMOFs) [1], zeolite imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs)
[2], covalent organic frameworks (COFs) [3], coordination polymers
of Oslo (CPOs) [4, 5], Mate´riaux de l’Institut Lavoisier (MILs)
[6], copper 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylate (Cu-BTC) [7], and zinc 1,4-
benzenedicarboxylic acid-triethylenediamine (Zn(bdc)(ted)0.5) [8].