From wooden models to thousands and thousands of structures, Julia Robinson tells the story of how Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi won the 2025 Nobel prize in chemistry

The electronic (e-)textiles market is forecast to increase to a value of $11 billion in the coming decade with applications spanning industries from medical monitoring to personal thermal management. Achieving high-performance e-textiles requires conductive coatings that are continuous and well-adhered to fa

The exchange of the monocarboxylate ligand of the zirconium methacrylate oxocluster Zr6O4(OH)4(OMc)12 (OMc = CH2 [[double bond, length as m-dash]] CH(CH3)COO) with dicarboxylic acids (trans,trans muco...

Coordination polymers (CPs) and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are among the most prolific research areas of inorganic chemistry and crystal engineering in the last 15 years, and yet it still seems t...

We report the generation and characterization of the most complete collection of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) maintained and updated, for the first time, by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC). To set up this subset, we asked the question “what is a MOF?” and implemented a number of “look-for-MOF” criteria embedded within a bespoke Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) Python API workflow to identify and extract information on 69 666 MOF materials. The CSD MOF subset is updated regularly with subsequent MOF additions to the CSD, bringing a unique record for all researchers working in the area of porous materials around the world, whether to perform high-throughput computational screening for materials discovery or to have a global view over the existing structures in a single resource. Using this resource, we then developed and used an array of computational tools to remove residual solvent molecules from the framework pores of all the MOFs identified and went on to analyze geometrical and physical properties of nondisordered structures.

Metal−organic frameworks (MOFs) have shown adsorption behavior that is not observed in other microporous materials such as zeolites or activated carbons. This study used grand canonical Monte Carlo si...

The concept of “robust dynamics” describes the incorporation of mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs) into metal-organic framework (MOF) materials such that large amplitude motions (e.g., rotation or translation of a macrocycle) can occur inside the free volume pore of the MOF. To aid in the preparation of such materials, reticular synthesis was used herein to design rigid molecular building blocks with predetermined ordered structures starting from the well-known MOF NOTT-101. New linkers were synthesized that have a T-shape, based on a triphenylene tetra-carboxylate strut, and their incorporation into Cu(II)-based MOFs was investigated. The single-crystal structures of three new MOFs, UWCM-12 (fof), β-UWCM-13 (loz), UWCM-14 (lil), with naked T-shaped linkers were determined; β-UWCM-13 is the first reported example of the loz topology. A fourth MOF, UWDM-14 (lil) is analogous to UWCM-14 (lil) but contains a [2]rotaxane linker. Variable-temperature, 2H solid-state NMR was used to probe the dynamics of a 24-membered macrocycle threaded onto the MOF skeleton.