Special issue: New generations of porous metal-organic frameworks

Metal-Organic Frameworks, a relatively young class of highly porous materials, do not only beat all records in terms of specific surface area and porosity; their modular construction allows precise functionalization for applications in medicine, catalysis, gas storage and separation. The international MOF conference held 2014 in Kobe reflected an enormous activity in the field with a focus on emerging MOF applications for example using electronic or magnetic features of novel materials and integration in energy related applications. Novel MOF architectures with defined molecular functionality serve as specific catalysts. A key task for future applications is the improvement of chemically stable materials under hydrothermal conditions for example for heat storage systems. New generations of MOF materials combine responsive structural transitions with high guest uptake and may pave the way towards sensing or biological functionality. Nanostructured MOFs are the key for in vivo applications. The special issue takes into account these novel developments especially targeting on the synthesis of highly stable MOFs for example based on aluminum or using imidazolate as linkers. The integration of functional groups into highly porous systems and the tolerance towards variable synthesis conditions is a prerequisite for a high selectivity in adsorption systems. Several contributions focusing on the selective adsorption of CO2 or NO reflect the enormous interest in gas separation applications, nowadays especially for medicinal applications. However, for system integration a key task is also the development of suitable MOF morphologies adapted to microsystem and thin film integration. In this regard reports focusing on thin films and nanoparticles for sensing are placed at the end of the special issue, as they will play a more important role in the foreseeable future. S. Kaskel would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for generously supporting German MOF science within the special priority program SPP 1362 as coordinator from 2008 to 2014 (www.metal-organic-frameworks.de).