Metal-organic frameworks: the young child of the porous solids family

摘要

There are few examples of topics which, in fifteen years, have known such a tremendous development. Beside the current explosion of new products, due to the quasi-infinity of possible combinations between inorganic and organic moieties, and the understanding of their formation, the current trends, mainly evidenced and developed during the last three years, offer know a myriad of potential applications. The only limitation is the imagination of researchers. In a few years, hybrid solids passed from curiosities to strategic materials. Not only they amplify most of the performances of the usual porous solids (sieving, adsorption, storage…) but they reach domains usually reserved to other disciplines: solid state chemistry and physics with the introduction of physical properties, usually devoted to dense phases; life sciences with their ability to store and deliver drugs; the emerging field of nanosciences and the possibility to provide monodisperse nanoparticles of many kinds of solids… Even polymer science is now concerned [113] with the polymerization of monomers and their dependence toward the confinement effects provided by the restricted space of the pores. These solids represent a new world. We just discover it. As I recently wrote: 'Hybrid porous solids: are there limits to the possible?'