Porous Metal-Organic Liquids as a New Platform for Investigating Gas-Liquid Interactions
Abstract
The development of advanced porous materials for the reversible, high-capacity adsorption of specific guest molecules is critical to the success of many emerging technologies in energy, sustainable development, and medicine. The research proposed herein targets a fundamentally new class of porous materials~metal-organic liquids~that will feature both intrinsic porosityand fluidity, affording novel behaviors and previously inaccessible functionality. Conventional liquids possess tiny, transient pores whose fleeting existence is due to thermally induced fluctuations in local density. Here, the local structure~and porosity~of liquids will be strongly influenced by directional interactions mediated by coordination bonds, leading to enhanced gas solubility and transforming conventional relationships between the microscopic structure ofliquids and bulk macroscopic properties. Moreover, imparting porosity to liquids will offer access to properties that are not possible in conventional porous solids, including surface tension, tunable viscosity, motion by capillary action, surface wetting, and the ability to flow and fill a volume of any size or shape. Our unique approach to the design of metal-organic liquids with intrinsic microporosity will lead to the creation of a new phase space of porous materials that exhibit both fundamentally insightful and technologically important properties. Top-performing materials are expected to open new areas of research within gas storage and separations and provide fundamental insights into gas-liquid interactions relevant to understanding the behavior of gases in both natural and synthetic systems. This research will contribute to new applications of particular importance to the ONR and DoD, including high-density gas storage, toxic gas removal from confined environments, and the prevention of decompression sickness in deep sea diving.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 25, 2019
- Source ID
- N000141912148
Entities
People
- Jarad A Mason
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- President and Fellows of Harvard College
- United States Navy