Abstract

The study of hybrid inorganic-organic frameworks is one of the most fashionable areas of materials science. The presentation will focus on some aspects of our recent work on framework metal carboxylates, which may be nanoporous or dense. The synthesis of carboxylates with structures of different dimensionalities will be described, and we shall examine the factors that control structural trends in hybrid materials, such as cation size, ligand geometry, ligand flexibility, chirality, synthesis temperature, pH and so on [1]. We shall also examine some of the potential applications of hybrid materials in areas such as enantiomerically-selective catalysis, hydrogen storage, magnetism, photoluminescence, and multiferroics [2-4].

1. A. K. Cheetham, C. N. R. Rao and R. K. Feller, Chem. Comm. 4780 (2006)

2. A. K. Cheetham and C. N. R. Rao, Science, 318, 58 (2007)

3. C. N. R. Rao, A. K. Cheetham and A. Thirumurugan, J. Phys. Cond. Matter 20, 083202 (2008).

4. P. Jain, N. S. Dalal, B. H. Toby, H. W. Kroto, and A. K. Cheetham, J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 130, 10450 (2008).