Unveiling the metal-organic framework melting and porous hybrid glass formation mechanism across scales: an operando XAS/PDF/PXRD investigat

Hybrid inorganic-organic glasses are an emerging class of materials formed in the melting and subsequent glass crystallization of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), crystalline materials composed by inorganic metal nodes bound by polydentate organic linkers with unrivalled chemical tunability. Hybrid glasses harness the chemistry of MOFs to realise porous, locally ordered glasses with proposed applications as solid electrolytes, functional membranes, nonlinear optics, radioactive waste storage or biomedicine. Despite the interest in these innovative materials, it is difficult to carry out operando investigations of the melting-recrystallization process and little information is available on the factors enabling the hybrid glass formation. Here, we propose a combined in-situ XAS/PDF/PXRD investigation of prototypical ZIF-62 MOFs during melting and glass formation and we believe that this study will reveal unprecedented insights on the structural factors governing these processes.