Suspension Processing of Microporous Metal-Organic Frameworks: A Scalable Route to High-Quality Adsorbents

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) have been intensively studied for applications such as gas storage, gas separation, catalysis, drug delivery, and more. Typically, the development of MOFs involves a post-synthetic solvent exchange process, which usually requires a significant investment of time, energy, labor, and resources. Herein, we propose a novel post-synthetic processing methodology for commercial and laboratory-scale MOFs called “Suspension Processing.” Suspension processing is a non-destructive, agitation-based technique that provides efficient solvent exchange, pore cleaning, and surface defect removal in MOFs. Suspension processing has shown the capability to significantly improve the surface area and gas uptake properties of microporous MOFs, including PCN-250, UiO-66, and HKUST-1. Suspension processing displays improved time, energy, and labor efficiency, as well as considerably enhanced product quality. These findings confirm suspension processing as a straightforward methodology with applicability as a universal technique for the production of high-quality microporous materials.