Scientists have long known that seawater contains small concentrations of valuable metals, but a technologically feasible extraction method has remained elusive. The University of Chicago’s Carter Abney, a graduate student in chemistry, has been developing materials called metal-organic frameworks to help address the problem. (more…)
Researchers at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry Create First Soluble 2D Supramolecular Organic Frameworks
Supramolecular chemistry, aka chemistry beyond the molecule, in which molecules and molecular complexes are held together by non-covalent bonds, is just beginning to come into its own with the emergence of nanotechnology. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are commanding much of the attention because of their appetite for greenhouse gases, but a new player has joined the field – supramolecular organic frameworks (SOFs). Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have unveiled the first two-dimensional SOFs that self-assemble in solution, an important breakthrough that holds implications for sensing and separation technologies, energy sciences, and, perhaps most importantly, biomimetics. (more…)
