Abstract

Understanding and controlling phase transformations is a timely subject of investigation because they are essential for the fabrication of high-performance materials with applications in energy, sensors, biomedical, and information-related technologies. Such transformations at the nanoscale arise from both diffusion kinetics and surface thermodynamics, whose reasoning represents a major intellectual challenge in multicomponent systems. In particular, the study of interconversion routes between stable and metastable states provides a useful foundation for the rational design of hard and soft materials. Here, we highlight some recent studies that have demonstrated the possibility of transforming rigid (hard) MOFs into flexible (soft) gel materials in quantitative (or nearly quantitative) yields, and vice versa albeit involving different mechanisms and starting materials. These works represent a new paradigm in the growing areas of crystal engineering and stimuli-responsive gels by building new bridges between advanced functional materials that have been traditionally studied in very different research fields.

Highlights

  • Viscoelastic gels[1] exhibit solid-like rheological behavior under deformation[2] and have been considered promising materials for bottom-up nanofabrication in numerous research fields.[3]

  • The resulting micro- or nanosized gel networks retained the shape and size of the original MOF crystals employed as templates in this approach

  • The first chimera-type hybrid material consisting of MOF and polymer gel was obtained by directional and partial hydrolysis of resulting cross-linked MOF

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Summary

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Transformation of rigid metal–organic frameworks into flexible gel networks and vice versa. Understanding and controlling phase transformations is a timely subject of investigation because they are essential for the fabrication of high-performance materials with applications in energy, sensors, biomedical, and information-related technologies. We highlight some recent studies that have demonstrated the possibility of transforming rigid (hard) MOFs into flexible (soft) gel materials in quantitative (or nearly quantitative) yields, and vice versa albeit involving different mechanisms and starting materials. These works represent a new paradigm in the growing areas of crystal engineering and stimuli-responsive gels by building new bridges between advanced functional materials that have been traditionally studied in very different research fields

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