RMIT technique makes MOFs in minutes

MOFs are versatile and super porous nanomaterials that can be used for sensing and trapping substances at minute concentrations or for purification of water or air. According to RMIT, MOFs can also hold large amounts of energy, for making better batteries and energy storage devices.

Scientists have designed more than 88,000 precisely-customised MOFs - with applications ranging from agriculture to pharmaceuticals - but the traditional process for creating them is said to be environmentally unsustainable and can take several hours or even days. The new technique can produce a customised MOF in minutes.

Dr Heba Ahmed, lead author of the study published in Nature Communications, said the efficient and scaleable method harnessed the precision power of high-frequency sound waves.

"MOFs have boundless potential, but we need cleaner and faster synthesis techniques to take full advantage of all their possible benefits," said Ahmed, a postdoctoral researcher in RMIT's Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory.

"Our acoustically-driven approach avoids the environmental harms of traditional methods and produces ready-to-use MOFs quickly and sustainably.