MOFs for energy and the environment Faraday Discussion

Professor Omar M. Yaghi has pioneered a new branch of science called reticular chemistry resulting in porous materials called Metal–Organic Frameworks (MOFs), Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs), and Zeolitic Imidazolate Frameworks (ZIFs). These substances are the most porous known to date and can be easily designed and transformed chemically, making them useful for hydrogen and methane storage, carbon capture and conversion, and catalysis, to mention a few applications.

Particularly, Professor Yaghi has pioneered the use of these porous crystals such as MOFs to harvest water from desert air, and MOFs do it so efficiently that no additional energy is needed other than the warmth of the natural sunlight.

Professor Yaghi called for “personalized water” in which he laid out a vision of having water off grid in the future, where people have a device at home running on ambient solar energy, delivering the water that satisfies the needs of a household. He believes at a time when fresh water resources are becoming increasingly scarce, it is important to establish water as a basic human right that must be guaranteed to every person on earth.

Susumu Kitagawa obtained a Ph.D. degree from Kyoto University. He is a distinguished professor at Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Science (KUIAS) and Director of Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS), Kyoto University.
He originated the science and technology of gas with PCP/MOFs. He predicted early on the softness of PCP/MOF crystals and demonstrated that their framework changes in response to external fields to express various functions such as storage, separation, and conversion. He named these materials soft porous crystals (SPC) as a more generic term and pioneered the chemistry, which is now rapidly spreading to other porous materials.
He showed a clear vision for research by categorizing PCP/MOF materials as evolving from the first- to second-generation type in the early days to the third-generation in SPC and now to the fourth-generation type.
He advocates that the 21st century will be the "age of gas," where gas will be a crucial material in all areas of the environment, energy, resources, and health, and porous materials will play an important role.

François-Xavier Coudert obtained his PhD in 2007 form the Université Paris-Sud (France), before becoming a post-doctoral researcher at University College London (UK). He was recruited as a CNRS researcher at PSL University, in Paris, in 2008. He was promoted to senior researcher in 2019, and holds a position as professor at École normale supérieure in Paris. His main research interests lie in the computational study of materials and interfaces, with specific focus on developing molecular simulations methods and statistical thermodynamics models to describe the adsorption of molecular fluids in zeolites, metal–organic frame- works, and other nanoporous materials. In particular, he loves materials with flexibility, defects, and disorder. See https://www.coudert.name/ for further details.

Yong Cui received his PhD in physical chemistry in 1999 from Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, CAS. He conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Science and Technology of China, University of North Carolina and University of Chicago from 1999 to 2005. He joined Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2005, where he is now a chair professor of chemistry. His research interest focuses on the fields of chiral chemistry, porous framework materials, supramolecular assemblies, catalysis and separation. He has received several awards including the Cheung Kong Professorship by Chinese Ministry of Education, the Outstanding Youth of Natural Science Foundation of China for Academic Excellence and Natural Science Awards of Shanghai (First class)

Deanna obtained her BSc in chemistry, physics and mathematics from James Cook University followed by PhD research with Em/Prof. Richard Keene which received the 2006 RACI Cornforth Medal and a 2007 IUPAC Prize for Young Chemists. Following postdoctoral work with Prof. Jeff Long at the University of California, Berkeley (2007-9) as the Dow Chemical Company Fellow (American-Australian Association) and an 1851 Fellow, she returned to Australia to build her independent research exploring emergent electronic phenomena in framework materials. She has held various fellowships (L’Oréal Australia for Women in Science Fellowship (2010), ARC QEII Fellowship (2011-16) and an ARC Future Fellowship (2018-)) and was the recipient of the 2017 LeFèvre Medal (Australian Academy of Science).

With an unconventional multidisciplinary scientific background (Pharmacy BCs, 2001 and Material Science Ph.D, 2005; University Complutense of Madrid, Spain), she joined the Institut Lavoisier (France), first as postdoc (2005) and then, as CNRS researcher in 2007. Since 2016, Patricia is Senior Researcher and Head of the Advanced Porous Materials Unit in IMDEA Energy (Madrid, Spain), focused on the development of new multifunctional materials and their application in strategic fields such as energy, environment and health. She got several awards, including the “Young Researchers Leading Groups” (RSEQ, 2020), Leonardo award (BBVA Foundation, 2017) and “Miguel Catalan Price for researchers younger than 40 years old” (Madrid, 2016).

Christian Serre (50 y/o) got his PhD in 1999 at University de Versailles (France). He became CNRS researcher in 2001 at Institut Lavoisier de Versailles within the porous solids group of prof. Gérard Férey. He took the lead of the group in 2008 and then moved to Paris in 2016 to create a new Institute fully dedicated to Porous Materials within the frame of Ecole Normale Supérieure, ESPCI Paris, CNRS and the PSL university. Christian main expertise lies in the synthesis, characterization of porous solids such as Metal Organic Frameworks and related composites, and their potential applications in health, environment and energy. CS got many awards such as the CNRS Bronze medal, an ERC grant and the Berthelot Medal of the French academy of Sciences. He has published so far >350 publications and 25 patents (3 licensed). He is a Thomson Reuters highly cited scientist (Chemistry) since 2014.

Natalia B. Shustova received her M.S. degree in Materials Science from Moscow State University (MSU), Russia and two Ph.D. degrees in Physical Chemistry (MSU) and Inorganic Chemistry (Colorado State University). Her postdoctoral research was conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2013, Natalia was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina (USC). After four years, she has been promoted to the rank of an Associate Professor with tenure. Since 2016, Natalia has also served as an associate editor of Materials Chemistry Frontiers. During her independent career, she has received many prestigious awards such as the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, IAS Hans Fischer Fellowship, Cottrell Scholar Award, Alfred P. Sloan Research Award, Breakthrough Award, and Camille Dreyfus Teaching-Scholar Award. Natalia was named a Scialog Fellow of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, which accelerates 21st century transformational science through research, dialog, and community outreach. At USC, Natalia was selected as a McCausland Faculty Fellow, which is given to early career faculty who bring innovation to their research and teaching. Her current research interests include graphitic hybrid materials for sustainable energy conversion, stimuli-responsive materials, sensors, and artificial biomimetic systems.