In situ Neutron Diffraction Studies of Adsorbed Gas Molecules in a Rare Ti-MOF

Air pollution and global warming are two of the greatest threats to our society and environment. Emerging robust porous materials have shown potential for removal of toxic/greenhouse gases from air. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have demonstrated tuneable pore structures as a pertinent feature in efficient adsorption of toxic gases (e.g., NH3, CH4, CO2, SO2, NO2) emitted by transportations, coal-fired powerplants and many industries. We recently developed a rare Ti(IV)-based MOF that is isostructural to our previously developed MFM-300(MIII) (M = Al, Sc, V, Cr, Fe, In) materials. MFM-300(Ti) has shown an extremely high stability (up to 500 oC) and demonstrated promising adsorption capacity for CH4/CO2/SO2/NO2/NH3. The proposed study aims to carry out the structure determination of the novel MFM-300(Ti) material as a function of gas loading to elucidate the host-guest interactions. This will greatly benefit from the high resolution and in situ gas loading setup at beamline WISH as demonstrated by our recent joint publications.