Peptide hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks.

Hydrogen-bonded porous frameworks (HPFs) are versatile porous crystalline frameworks with diverse applications. However, designing chiral assemblies or biocompatible materials poses significant challenges. Peptide-based hydrogen-bonded porous frameworks (P-HPFs) are an exciting alternative to conventional HPFs due to their intrinsic chirality, tunability, biocompatibility, and structural diversity. Flexible, ultra-short peptide-based P-HPFs (composed of 3 or fewer amino acids) exhibit adaptable porous topologies that can accommodate a variety of guest molecules and capture hazardous greenhouse gases. Longer, folded peptides present challenges and opportunities in designing P-HPFs. This review highlights recent developments in P-HPFs using ultra-short peptides, folded peptides, and foldamers, showcasing their utility for gas storage, chiral recognition, chiral separation, and medical applications. It also addresses design challenges and future directions in the field.

Metal-driven folding and assembly of a minimal ß-sheet into a 3D-porous honeycomb framework.

In contrast to short helical peptides, constrained peptides, and foldamers, the design and fabrication of crystalline 3D frameworks from the ß-sheet peptides are rare because of their high self-aggregation propensity to form 1D architectures. Herein, we demonstrate the formation of a 3D porous honeycomb framework through the silver coordination of a minimal ß-sheet forming a peptide having terminal metal coordinated 4- and 3-pyridyl ligands.

A robust ultra-microporous cationic aluminum-based metal-organic framework with a flexible tetra-carboxylate linker.

Al-based cationic metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are uncommon. Here, we report a cationic Al-MOF, MIP-213(Al) ([Al18(µ2-OH)24(OH2)12(mdip)6]6Cl·6H2O) constructed from flexible tetra-carboxylate ligand (5,5'-Methylenediisophthalic acid; H4mdip). Its crystal structure was determined by the combination of three-dimensional electron diffraction (3DED) and high-resolution powder X-ray diffraction. The structure is built from infinite corner-sharing chains of AlO4(OH)2 and AlO2(OH)3(H2O) octahedra forming an 18-membered rings honeycomb lattice, similar to that of MIL-96(Al), a scarce Al-polycarboxylate defective MOF. Despite sharing these structural similarities, MIP-213(Al), unlike MIL-96(Al), lacks the isolated µ3-oxo-bridged Al-clusters. This leads to an ordered defective cationic framework whose charge is balanced by Cl- sandwiched between two Al-trimers at the corner of the honeycomb, showing strong interaction with terminal H2O coordinated to the Al-trimers. The overall structure is endowed by a narrow quasi-1D channel of dimension ~4.7 Å. The Cl- in the framework restrains the accessibility of the channels, while the MOF selectively adsorbs CO2 over N2 and possesses high hydrolytic stability.

Coordination Flexibility Aided CO2 -specific Gating in an Iron Isonicotinate MOF.

Coordination flexibility assisted porosity has been introduced into an Iron-isonicotinate metal-organic framework (MOF), (Fe(4-PyC)2 ⋅ (OH). The framework showed CO2 -specific gate opening behavior, which gets tuned as a function of temperature and pressure. The MOF's physisorptive porosity towards CO2 , CH4 , and N2 was investigated; it adsorbed only CO2 via a gate opening phenomenon. The isonicotinate, representing a borderline soft base, is bound to the hard Fe3+ centre through monodentate carboxylate and pyridyl nitrogen. This moderately weak binding enables isonicotinate to spin like a spindle under the CO2 pressure opening the gate for a sharp increase in CO2 uptake at 333 mmHg (At 298 K, the CO2 uptake increases from 0.70 to 1.57 mmol/g). We investigated the MOF's potential for CO2 /N2 and CO2 /CH4 gas separation aided by this gating. IAST model reveals that the CO2 /N2 selectivity jumps from 325 to 3131 when the gate opens, while the CO2 /CH4 selectivity increases three times. Interestingly, this Fe-isonicotinate MOF did not follow the trend set by our earlier reported Hard-Soft Gate Control (established for isostructural M2+ -isonicotinate MOFs (M=Mg, Mn)). However, we account for this discrepancy using the different oxidation state of metals confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and magnetism.

Ultralow Parasitic Energy for Postcombustion CO2 Capture Realized in a Nickel Isonicotinate Metal-Organic Framework with Excellent Moisture Stability.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted significant attention as solid sorbents in gas separation processes for low-energy postcombustion CO2 capture. The parasitic energy (PE) has been put forward as a holistic parameter that measures how energy efficient (and therefore cost-effective) the CO2 capture process will be using the material. In this work, we present a nickel isonicotinate based ultramicroporous MOF, 1 [Ni-(4PyC)2·DMF], that has the lowest PE for postcombustion CO2 capture reported to date. We calculate a PE of 655 kJ/kg CO2, which is lower than that of the best performing material previously reported, Mg-MOF-74. Further, 1 exhibits exceptional hydrolytic stability with the CO2 adsorption isotherm being unchanged following 7 days of steam-treatment (>85% RH) or 6 months of exposure to the atmosphere. The diffusion coefficient of CO2 in 1 is also 2 orders of magnitude higher than in zeolites currently used in industrial scrubbers. Breakthrough experiments show that 1 only loses 7% of its maximum CO2 capacity under humid conditions.