Metal-Organic Frameworks: Emerging Porous Materials for Energy Applications

Abstract

This chapter covers the impact of the development of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), as emerging innovative materials, for energy applications. MOFs are a class of porous crystalline materials built up from the interconnection of organic linkers (ligands) and metal nodes (metal ions or clusters). The smart choice of these organic and inorganic synthons, the in situ and postsynthetic-generated functionalities/templates and the exerted control on their spatial arrangement (framework architecture) confer chemical diversity and allow the fine-tuning of their intrinsic porosity and accessible surface area. This controllable structure-to-function relationship, together with their remarkable structural and chemical versatility, has resulted in the evaluation of these porous coordination polymers (PCPs) in many energy storage and conversion applications referring to H2 storage and production, CO2 reduction, solar and fuel cells, hybrid supercapacitors, anode, cathode, and electrolyte for lithium-based batteries, etc.