Metal-Organic-Framework-Based Materials as Platforms for Renewable Energy and Environmental Applications

Exploring novel functional materials is of vital importance in the development of science and technology, and thus beneficial to our daily life. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and their composites as well as derivatives, with high porosity and tailorable chemical components, have drawn increasing interest in gas storage, energy conversion, and environment remediation in the past decades. This review highlights recent achievements on applications of MOF-based materials in the renewable energy and environmental science. Specifically, the developments and advantages of MOF-based materials are first presented and discussed. We then focus on the fabrication strategies of MOF-based materials and their applications in areas including gas adsorption, energy conversion, and storage. The well-established findings provide an in-depth understanding for the construction and application of these advanced materials. This review concludes with some outlooks for the fields of energy conversion and environmental science by using MOF-based materials. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), also known as porous coordination polymers, have attracted great interest as one of the best examples of materials constructed from molecular engineering with high porosity, organic-inorganic hybrid nature, synthetic advantages, and inherent presence of coordinated metal and heteroatoms. Constructing MOF-based materials, including pristine MOFs and their composites as well as their derivatives for renewable energy and environmental applications, is a newly emerging but fast-growing field owing to their remarkable advantages in structural optimization and component design. In the present review, we provide a comprehensive overview focusing on the utilization of MOF-based materials in niche areas of gas adsorption, energy conversion, and storage. Specifically, the development and advantages of MOF-based materials are first presented and discussed. We then highlight the recent progress of the fabrication strategies and the applications of MOF-based materials in hydrogen (H₂) adsorption and evolution, CO₂ storage and conversion, catalysis of oxygen (O₂), rechargeable batteries, supercapacitors, and solar cells. The great flexibility in design and synthesis of MOFs enables MOF-based materials with tailorable compositions, morphologies, structures, properties, and functionalities to be a highly versatile and tunable platform for renewable clean energy and environmental remediation. Lastly, the challenges associated with the development of MOF-based materials are summarized and some possible research directions are proposed for further improvement of these novel functional materials in the fields of energy conversion and environmental science. Construction of metal-organic framework (MOF)-based materials is a newly emerging but fast-growing field, which has shown huge impact on many renewable energy and environmental applications such as gas adsorption, energy conversion, and storage. The great flexibility in design and synthesis of MOFs enables the MOF-based materials to be highly attractive for modern applications. In this review, we present the latest progress on the design and synthesis of MOFs and their composites as well as derivatives for energy and environmental applications. © 2017 Elsevier Inc.