Structural disorder in molecular framework materials

It is increasingly apparent that many important classes of molecular framework material exhibit a variety of interesting and useful types of structural disorder. This tutorial review summarises a number of recent efforts to understand better both the complex microscopic nature of this disorder and a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chemical Society reviews 2013-01, Vol.42 (12), p.4881-4893
Main Authors: Cairns, Andrew B, Goodwin, Andrew L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cyanide process
Dielectrics
Diffraction
Diffusion
Disorders
Ferroelectric materials
Scattering
Spectroscopy
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Summary:It is increasingly apparent that many important classes of molecular framework material exhibit a variety of interesting and useful types of structural disorder. This tutorial review summarises a number of recent efforts to understand better both the complex microscopic nature of this disorder and also how it might be implicated in useful functionalities of these materials. We draw on a number of topical examples including topologically-disordered zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs), porous aromatic frameworks (PAFs), the phenomena of temperature-, pressure- and desorption-induced amorphisation, partial interpenetration, ferroelectric transition-metal formates, negative thermal expansion in cyanide frameworks, and the mechanics and processing of layered frameworks. We outline the various uses of pair distribution function (PDF) analysis, dielectric spectroscopy, peak-shape analysis of powder diffraction data and single-crystal diffuse scattering measurements as means of characterising disorder in these systems, and we suggest a number of opportunities for future research in the field. Structural disorder is surprisingly commonplace amongst molecular framework materials, and can play an important role in controlling their functional properties.
ISSN:0306-0012
1460-4744
DOI:10.1039/c3cs35524a