Incorporation of Metal Organic Frameworks onto a porous polymer platform

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are a diverse class of porous crystalline materials that are known for their utility across applications such as gas separation, sensors, and catalysis. However, a critical issue that MOFs face is a lack of mechanical stability due to their brittle structures. To circumvent this problem, a growing area of research has been focused on incorporating MOFs onto a polymeric support which can offer structural stability as well as malleability in its form factor. In this study we polymerized a polyethylene glycol (PEG) based high internal phase emulsion (polyHIPE) to create an inexpensive and robust mesoporous polymer scaffold with a well-defined interconnected pore structure. Two separate MOFs, HKUST-1 and MOF-808, were successfully grown on the polyHIPEs and characterized for their physical, crystalline, and catalytic properties and compared to the neat MOFs. In this study we show that we can easily assemble MOFs onto a porous polymer platform and improved their utility and functionality by incorporating them in a robust, inexpensive, and versatile polymer framework.