Solventless Synthesis of MOFs at High Pressure

Besides the substitution or minimization of the use of harmful solvents, one essential goal of chemistry is to try to avoid their use altogether whenever possible. In the case of the synthesis of MOFs (metal organic frameworks), this can only be achieved by finding alternatives to conventional processes. An example is the approach described here which involves working at high pressure (at 0.31 GPa) without using a solvent. This has evident advantages over mechanochemical synthesis by grinding or milling (also a solventless process) where the sample is submitted to attrition. The present paper reports the simple high pressure synthesis of the ZIF (zeolitic imizadolate framework) ZIF-8. This methodology enables fast synthesis of MOF materials and offers new insights into their industrial implementation. In addition, this technique could be applied to the synthesis of other MOFs and even COFs (covalent organic frameworks).