Designing Molecular Building Blocks for the Self-assembly of Complex Porous Networks

Published

March 19, 2019

Author(s)

Tiara A. Maula, Harold Hatch, Vincent K. Shen, Rangarajan Srinivas, Jeetain Mittal

Abstract

Molecular building blocks which self-assemble into large ordered porous networks have been long sought-after, and have led to the development of metal organic frameworks and covalent organic frameworks. However, despite the great potential possessed by these materials in forming a wide variety of porous networks, only structures which are decomposable into building blocks with high symmetry have been realized. In this work, we show how using chemically specific patchy molecules can lead to the self-assembly of porous crystallites. We demonstrate the utility of such a strategy in creating heteroporous networks and also in the control of pore sizes. We show how slight modifications to the building blocks can be used to create a large variety of mathematically distinct networks. We also discuss other considerations to the design of the building blocks, including the effect of patch angle and the use of building blocks which take the form of a secondary geometric unit, in order to create larger crystallites and in discovering emergent structures.

Citation

Molecular Systems Design and Engineering

Pub Type

Journals

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Citation

Maula, T. , Hatch, H. , Shen, V. , Srinivas, R. and Mittal, J. (2019), Designing Molecular Building Blocks for the Self-assembly of Complex Porous Networks, Molecular Systems Design and Engineering, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=927382 (Accessed November 4, 2025)